Chuck vs A Man Named Stone
by gaseous
Summary: Chuck tries to learn how to save himself instead of relying on others.
1. Chapter 1 Plans

A/N: First story in a long time, so I'm rusty. Theoretically this takes place after Chuck vs. The Marlin.

Song lyrics are from "Free Fall" by In Flames.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 1 – Plans

Three figures huddled around a table in a pitch dark room, the only source of illumination coming from a flashlight that one of them was holding. They were scanning what looked to be a section of a blueprint to a building.

"I still don't believe you were able to get this." One of the figures asked in shocked excitement.

"All you need to know is that this information came at a huge cost to us. Now focus and pay attention the two of you. Our intelligence shows that the shipment will be coming through this door here, about 20 boxes of goods." Another of the figures stated seriously, "Now, what we want is in one of these boxes."

"What about security?" The third figure replied quietly.

"There will be guards posted on either side of the doors located here. There will be between two to four personnel offloading the boxes. They'll be loading them onto hand carts in the truck and depositing them directly here." The second figure responded as he pointed from one side of the blueprint to the other side.

"We can make the grab during the transfer then." The first figure stated as he looked at the blueprint in thought, "there won't be any guards following right?"

"You're right that there are no guards, but there are security cameras all along this corridor. No, our best opportunity is during the offloading from the truck to the hand carts. There's no security in the truck and no cameras that can view into the truck area."

"How are we going to make the grab then?" The third figure asked.

"Oh we've got someone on the inside." The first figure smirked, as a bubble of laughter erupted from his throat. The other two dark figures started to chuckle until all three dissolved into giggles.

- click -

The entire room was bathed in light and had the three figures shielding their eyes as they were trying to adjust to the new brightness.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" Anna demanded as she walked towards Morgan, Lester, and Jeff. She took a look at the blueprint on the table and was able to see that it showed the Buy More store. She scanned the three men as they looked down shamefully, "Don't tell me you've spent the last hour in here plotting how to steal the new Fracture demo?"

"But Anna sweetie, it has the new terraforming physics engine! Imagine what a well placed rocket would do to a wall or ground! BOOM!" Morgan excitedly responded as he waved his arms around trying to explain the massive awesomeness of the game.

"You two," Anna pointed at Lester and Jeff, "are supposed to be helping me at the desk. You know Chuckles is in the cage all day today and I've been swamped! So get your asses back out there to help me out!"

Anna didn't wait for a response as she headed back towards the door but stopped when Morgan shouted, "Anna, baby, could you hit the lights. Please? Pretty please?"

Anna rolled her eyes and flicked the light switch as she walked through the door, bathing the break room in darkness again. The three huddled figures looked at each other and started to snicker as they once again dissolved into snickers and giggles.

- click -

Their laughter died as they looked at Big Mike standing at the threshold to the door, his coffee and Danish in hand. "I don't even want to know." Big Mike said as he turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

The atmosphere in the cage at the back of the store was a completely different one. Instead of the confused joviality in the break room the back room seemed devoid of life. The sole living being was sitting facing the rear wall, his back to the cage's door and the rest of the room. Chuck Bartowski had been in the cage since early this morning, before anyone had even come into the store, before the sun had even started to peak the horizon. The first thing he had done was redo the personnel schedule, quietly putting his name into the cage slot for the whole week. He then proceeded to enter the cage and turn the work table around so that he would be facing the shelves on the rear wall. His final action before he sat in front of the piles of computers was to close and lock the cage door. As he sat he reached into his pocket and pulled his iPod out, turning the volume to an almost painful level, searched through for a particular song, and set it on repeat.

It was now 3pm and Chuck had not left the cage all day. In the earlier parts of the day the Buy More employees had filtered through and seeing that Chuck was churning out fixes after fixes they had left him in his zone. Casey had grunted and left without saying a word, thinking that if the kid was locked up in the cage there was no way he could cause or get into trouble.

Sarah was now standing at the door to the cage, looking in. She had tried the door to find it locked. While she could easily pick the lock she chose to just take a look at her asset. She had called his name a few times already and he didn't appear to make any movement to acknowledge that he had heard her. Sarah watched for a few more seconds before she walked back out, her face showing annoyance.

10pm rolled by and Chuck was still in the cage, the rest of the store darkened and empty. He had made a sizeable dent in the huge backlog of inventory that had been sitting on the shelf these past few days and weeks. Looking around and seeing that it was completely dark save his work lamp, he decided to stop working as he stretched his back, cracking his neck and shoulders as he stretched and rotated them around, and grimaced from the pain in his abdomen and right arm. The moment he stood up he felt the immediate need to head to the restroom and quickly unlocked the door and ran to the bathroom emitting yelps of urgency.

An exclamation of relief could be heard echoing through the empty store.

15 minutes later, as Chuck moved all the finished electronics from the cage his mind, with nothing to occupy itself with other than the same song that had been playing all day, began to drift back to the events from the previous night.

**Mirror mirror,**

**How far will I go?**

Chuck was sitting in Casey's Suburban watching the still under construction building in front of him. The building was located in a new business center and most of the walls still had not even been put up yet, which afforded him an exceptional internal view of Sarah and Casey crouched and slowly making their away up to the 6th floor.

He had heard the first sounds of gunshots tear through the early evening

**Despite the foundation,**

**I am falling.**

From his vantage point he wasn't able to see anything other than the illumination in the night from the guns trading shots on the 6th floor. He could vaguely make out voices shouting amongst the shooting but couldn't decipher who they were from, the crackling of submachine gun fire covered up almost all other noise.

**Sweet reflection,**

**Will you save a place for me?**

His heart didn't stop until he saw two fighting figures tumble from the 6th floor. One of the dark figures kept plummeting, making an unimpressive thump as it hit the dirt ground. The other person grabbed a steel girder and luckily held on.

With all his focus on the person hanging on for dear life Chuck spied a flash of long blonde hair in the moonlight on a very feminine figure as it flailed in the air. He was out of the car and running as fast as his legs could pump.

**Where am I heading?**

**Could you grant me a haven?**

Chuck raced toward the building, his breath raging out his mouth as his only thought was getting to Sarah on the 5th floor ledge. When he stumbled onto the 5th floor his legs were burning and he had to stop for a second to gain his breath and bearings.

**For what I am punished,**

**Could I ever repent?**

Chuck spun around trying to orient himself when he saw a pair of legs dangling off the side of the building. His fatigue forgotten he sprinted towards Sarah and grabbing a piece of rope that he saw lying on the ground.

"Sarah! Hang on!" He shouted as he came slamming to a halt next to a concrete column.

**Mother Nature, I'm wide open,**

**Waiting for you to move me.**

"Chuck! Get out of here!" Sarah shouted into space, not able to see her would be savior. "There's too many of them!"

Ignoring or not hearing her shout, his system spiked with adrenaline, Chuck threw the rope around the column and tied it down giving it one hefty yank to test it out.

**Don't keep it from me!**

**This is a free fall!**

**This is a free fall!**

Gun fire erupted from Chuck's right as he scurried to Sarah's dangling body. He danced wildly as concrete shrapnel pelted him from all sides, all the while squeaking out "Oh God, oh God, oh God." Having watched _Die Hard_ fanatically he began to tie the other end of the rope around his waste, not really paying attention to what he was doing.

As he came to the ledge, he grabbed Sarah and proceeded to trip off the 5th floor. His only thought as he lost his footing, "John McClane, I am not."

**I never seem to understand.**

**The time, the place, and who I am.**

Once the rope pulled taut and pivoted at the ledge, the restraining force snapped into Chuck's abdomen with phenomenal force, ripping his breath from him. By the time their bodies swung back into the cavity of the building he was seeing dark spots in his vision.

When the rope snapped to a stand still again as it reached its maximum travel distance Sarah was flung from Chuck's slack arms and tumbled a few feet while he slammed unceremoniously onto the 4th floor's concrete and into unconsciousness.

**Define a way to stay alive,**

**It's like I'm living a lie.**

When Chuck next woke, he snapped to attention from the smelling salt that Sarah was waving in front of his face. He began swatting at her hands while grumbling, "I'm awake, I'm awake." He looked around and realized they were in the car again, Casey in the front driving while Sarah was twisted and leaning to him from her front passenger seat.

Sarah let out a sigh of relief and closed her eyes for a second before opening them again with a fear filled fury that he had not ever seen.

"What were you thinking Chuck! You almost got yourself killed back there!"

**Father time, every time I stop and feel,**

**You're there to tell me I'm already late.**

"What?" Chuck asked dumbfounded, shouldn't she have been thanking him?

"What? Your running into a hot zone with no protection! That's what! You're supposed to stay in the car."

"Hey, wait wait. You were in trouble, what was I supposed to …"

"Stay in the car!" Sarah shouted in exasperation, "I had everything under control. We can't risk the Intersect by having you running around getting shot at!"

She knew she shouldn't have said those particular words the moment they left her mouth, Chuck's shocked face added to the guilt. Sarah turned to the front of the car and sighed, "Chuck, what I mean is you have to be careful and you have to obey our orders. We're here to protect you and we can't do that if you're running into harm's way."

**Don't keep it from me!**

**This is a free fall!**

During their report to General Beckman and Graham he had found out that CIA and NSA backup had arrived shortly after was knocked out. Casey had fought his way down to them and they were pinned down. With backup they were able to sweep through the hostiles and clear the area. The explosives being planted into the framework of the building were removed by the demolitions team. After they were told of Chuck's actions, the two pair of eyes on the monitor swiveled to the offending target.

As the tongue lashing spewed from their mouths Chuck's head lowered and lowered till he was looking at the bottom of cabinet. Sarah watched him from her peripheral vision and felt a little sorry for him, that was, until Beckman made her last statement.

"If you can't control yourself, if you continue to risk the Intersect in this way Mr. Bartowsky we will either find you new handlers that can control you or place you somewhere that you can't endanger it! Is that clear?" The General demanded.

Chuck's head snapped up and the other two agents went rigid. "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry, this won't ever happen again." The screen went blank, barely registering his reply.

Sarah and Casey silently seethed at the implied threat that they couldn't do their jobs well. They both turned and headed to the door.

"Sarah, Casey, I'm sor…" Chuck began.

"Save it" Sarah snapped, not bothering to look at him, while Casey stared at him hard for a second before marching out.

**I never seem to understand.**

**The time, the place, and who I am.**

**It's like I'm living a lie.**

As Chuck put the last of the fixed computers in order and organized the items to be worked on tomorrow, he stared at the clock. It was now midnight.

He looked down at his hands, staring at the small cuts and scratches from the sharp internals of the computers he was working on all day. He slowly made his way to his Nerd Herder, making a decision as he got into the vehicle. He didn't want to be squirreled away somewhere and he didn't want to lose Sarah.

He had to make this right.

**I never seem to understand.**

**The time, the place, and who I am.**

**Define a way to stay alive,**

**It's like I'm living a lie.**


	2. Chapter 2 Execution

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 2 – Execution

Chuck let a hiss escape his lips as he stretched to put on his undershirt. Looking in the mirror he was vaguely aware that the bruise from the rope around his abdomen looked darker and meaner than it did yesterday. At that moment, he couldn't stand to his full height and had to stay hunched over or else he'd feel a ripping pain that would start above his navel all the way mid-chest. Looking at his right shoulder he gave a once over of the bandage that covered the flesh wound caused by a bullet that zipped by a little too close. Holding his breath he shoved the shirt the rest of the way down his torso and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

After deciding that he needed to fix his current situation as the Intersect with his handlers and their superiors last night he had started to come up with a plan. Chuck's mind paused as it brought up an image of Sarah. The image of her as he had handed her his feelings again on the heli-pad right before Long Shore was shot.

Things had been strained between them after that day; Sarah had closed off any emotional holes that developed in her professional wall. Agent Walker was back in full force. Now, as his mind replayed through that night's events he realized that she hadn't said anything at all, just gave that sad watery look. As Chuck stared at the dark ceiling, he figured that if after all the times that he put himself out on the limb letting her know his feelings while she kept backpedaling and refuting any existence of any real reciprocating feelings then he needed to stop reading too much into her actions.

He needed to make a clean emotional break. Chuck sighed as he fumbled with putting on his dress shirt. Making that decision was relatively easy; actually following through with it would be the hard part. There was no way he could stop loving her the way that he did, but he had to stop reacting to that feeling. Almost impossible in his mind with how much he had already emotionally invested into their supposed relationship. He just didn't have a choice anymore.

His clock read 5am as Chuck walked out to his car to head back to the Buy More. He needed to try to distance himself emotionally from Sarah if he was to improve his performance on their team. He knew he wasn't a trained agent so that only left one avenue of improvement.

When Chuck arrived at the Buy More he sequestered himself into the cage again, locked the door once again, and turned up the volume on his iPod as he did yesterday and set it to random. He needed to wall himself away these next few days to get control over himself, to try and exorcise what demons he could, shore up what inner strength he could, and make peace with himself and the Intersect. He couldn't afford to flash on anything just yet; he wasn't ready to step back out into the real world until he could find the force within himself. Chuck allowed himself a little smile, the cage was his tree cave.

This second day of self-proclaimed exile played through as the previous days. Chuck studiously ignored all interactions with people as he focused solely and almost mechanically on the task at hand. Sarah's face showed some concern as she stood watching him for a few minutes as he worked, hunched over the desk, hands deep in a computer.

Morgan was the only person that was able to get Chuck to acknowledge and exchange a few words as he had resorted to throwing paper clips at Chuck. Even then, his exuberant explanation of the plan to pilfer the new Fracture demo only lasted a minute or two before Chuck politely declined any part of the heist and went back to work. He missed the worried glance that Morgan cast his way as he left the back room.

At 10:15pm Chuck found himself in the darkened home theater show room with the drapes drawn shut and the door locked. He was starting at the blank screen, marshaling his strength to come to him at what he was about to do. He had surprisingly completed fixes to all the remaining electronics today; he had luckily gotten a batch of easy to fix machines. As the day had slowly crawled by he had pretended to look diligent as he formulated how best to approach making the request he need for his plan.

Chuck knew that he was a not a man of physical prowess, he was not adept in the mystical arts of hand-to-hand combat, he was not deadly with the use of firearms, he was not brutally efficient with the handling of melee weapons, and he was not trained in the skill espionage. What he did know, was that he had the intelligence.

He sighed as he looked at the remote in his hand. The word intelligence was a double edged sword at the moment. He held a nation's worth of intelligence information from two rival spy organizations in his mind. He also had the intelligence of a man trained in computer engineering. What he lacked was the mental fortitude to rally his strength in dire situations and he lacked the nebulous control of the elusive intelligence that was hidden within him.

What he knew he needed was that control, that ability to gain and make mental leaps that defied logic in interpreting the data. As he punched in the sequence of buttons that he had seen Casey do hundreds of times, some part of his mind asked him whether or not he knew what he was doing.

The room became illuminated as the large LCD screen came alive, showing both directors on screen.

"Agent Casey, did you nee…. Bartowski? What is the meaning of this?" General Beckman shouted, clearly surprised.

Chuck gave a little shout as he jumped from the surprise, "Ah… well, you see… ummmm, the thing is…"

"I'm getting in contact with Agent Walker and Casey…" Director Graham ground out as he went for his cell phone.

"Wait!" Chuck shouted, "Wait, wait, wait. I wanted this conversation without their knowledge."

The two directors looked on at him, none too pleased with the situation, Director Graham's cell phone still laid open in his hand. A few seconds passed before General Beckman belted out, "Well, get on with it!"

Shocked, Chuck had been waiting for their approval to continue talking. Recovering what shred of confidence he could find he started, "I know last time we talked you had told me that I needed to get my act together or else I was going to be shipped off or my handlers replaced, and I wanted to once gain apologize for that."

He took a deep breath and continued, "I know I'm not a trained agent or even anything resembling what you would have liked to be housing the Intersect if you had a choice. Uhh, but I do know that I have it, you know, your stuff, in there swirling around.

"Well, what I'm saying is that I know that Agent Casey and Walker probably have reported my somewhat odd caveman behavior these past two days. But I've been thinking of how to be a better asset," Chuck snickered as the word came out, "Sorry. So what I do know is that the Intersect is in here," He continued as he tapped his head, "And it's not leaving anytime soon."

The two directors seemed to share a similar face telling him to hurry with what it was he wanted before they strangled him through the screen.

"Right, so, another thing I do know is that I know computers. I'm solid in the theories and in some cases the execution. I bEllieve, or I'd like to try to work on improving my access and interpretation of the Intersect information as well as the relationship modeling between the actual data itself. But the wiring of the Intersect, the human mind mechanics, that's way beyond me at this point."

Both the faces of the directors quirked up in surprise, clearly not expecting this.

Chuck continued, nothing was going to stop him now, short of Casey or Sarah busting through the door, "So what I was wondering is since I currently can only flash on something due to a triggering image or word, is if I could, maybe, you know, get information or the name of any algorithms that may have been used in the Intersect machine that was responsible for the data relationship modeling."

Chuck has spewed the last statement out quickly and stood there looking at the two very shocked director's faces.

"So," General Beckman began, "Let me get this straight. You, a civilian, who has no training…"

"Or clearance." Graham added.

"Think that in order to save your handlers from a reassignment and yourself from being sequestered to a secure facility," Beckman continued, "Hope that we will give you information to some of the algorithms used in the Intersection machine?"

Chuck only nodded his head, trying to school his features as much as possible.

"That has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!" Beckman announced, while Graham stood behind her, closing the cell phone in his hand with a thoughtful expression.

"Just wait, wait. Hear me out. I already have all the information in my head!" Chuck pleaded, sweat started to dot his forehead.

"I've been able to flash to get information that has lead us to successful missions these past few months but the information that I've been able to see and gather are so focused on that particular situation that it doesn't allow us to see any larger pattern or relationship amongst different events."

Chuck took another shaky breath before continuing, "Any computer, no matter how super it is, is still basically flawed in higher level relationship mapping. The Intersect machine could potentially find patterns amongst the data stored, but it won't be able to make the leap in deduction required for relationship mapping. The human mind, especially mine it seems, appears to be able to make these derivations subconsciously when brought on by a trigger. But these derivative results are so finitely focused. What I'm saying is that I'm willing to invest myself further into this to channel a broader derivation."

Chuck finished, noting his shirt was sticking to him from moisture and his hands were clammy. He hoped this Hail Mary play worked, if not, bye-bye Ellie, hello sterile wall. The two directors had their brows scrunched up in thought for a second or two before Graham stated, "Give us a minute."

The screen went black and Chuck fell to the sofa. His stomach hurt, he felt chilled to the bone, and he was a worried and nervous wreck. He kept rubbing his hands together, his right knee bouncing with nervous energy. Seconds turned to minutes and just as Chuck felt himself go into a hyper rendition of Morgan on a six-pack of Bawls, the LCD monitor came to life.

General Beckman clearly look irritated while Graham had an impenetrable poker face on while he asked, "Before we proceed any further, why is it that you don't want Agents Casey or Walker to know of this?"

Chuck released a breath of relief as he stood back up and tried to stand as straight as his stomach would allow, "I'm the one who's been messing up and they've both been doing their jobs exceptionally well. This is my improvement and not theirs." Chuck paused, sadly thinking about his fake relationship with Sarah.

"They do their job expertly and if there is any blame it is mine. They can't do their jobs any better." This final statement, as short as it was, almost crumbled him. His eyes misted as his belief solidified that all he had seen from her, in her eyes, and her comments were all just to control him, to further the cover.

General Beckman had an unreadable expression on her face while Director Graham seemed to give an almost imperceptible nod.

"We'll see how this plays out. We'll be informing Agents Casey and Walker to keep a closer eye on you as they think you're acting like a spoiled and depressed brat." Beckman stated.

Chuck raised his eyebrows at her comment, feeling hurt that Sarah would viewed him in that manner. Quickly his hurt morphed in anger as he clenched his hands into tight fists.

Direct Graham moved close to the camera, hovering slightly over General Beckman. "Report to us daily on your status, is that understood? But if anything, and I mean anything odd happens contact your handlers immediately."

Chuck nodded, a small part of his mind cheering, and even larger part wondering what the hell he was thinking.

"There was only one algorithm used in the pattern and relationship mapping programs in the Intersect. The algorithm codename is, Zebra Junction 3."

A sledge hammer to the face would have been a softer blow to Chuck's head than the pain he currently felt as not only images and code spiraled through his mind's eye. He felt as if his mind was being torn asunder. Chuck staggered back and fell onto the couch behind him, his hands covering his face, gripping it tightly, as his body convulsed in tight waves of shock, his throat emitted a wounded keening noise. He collapsed into himself as he felt like tearing his skull apart and ripping his mind out. He didn't hear the concerned shouts that repeated themselves from the two directors on the screen.

Somehow, possibly on an unconscious level, he was able to raise his right hand and pointed it toward the LCD screen, palm forward. General Beckman and Director Graham were both one button hit short of dialing their respective agents.

"No." Chuck's weak voice whispered out. "Zebra Junction 3, created by Victor Stone, computer scientist and engineer... I'm not just getting flashes of information."

Chuck paused to catch his breath, his body tightly wound together as his hand wrapped itself around the base of his skull. "I think," Chuck paused, "My mind is searching or tagging or … something."

Thirty minutes passed as the drilling and ripping pain in Chuck's mind receded to a blinding headache. He tried to look up into the apprehensive faces on the LCD screen, but the glare was too bright for him to endure at the moment. Laying himself on the couch he murmured, "The pain's receded some. I think the algorithm triggered a mental process that did a brute force query through all the images."

Chuck put an arm over his eyes, "I think I'm just going to lie here for a little."

"Check back in with us tomorrow night with your status Bartowski, we'll inform Agents Walker and Casey to keep an eye on you but will make sure they'll be away from Buy More at 10pm for your report." Graham stated, his voice softer than it normally would have been when directed to Chuck. General Beckman directed a curious glance at the CIA director.

Chuck nodded his head as the LCD went black once again and cast the room in total darkness.

He awoke to pitch darkness and rolled onto his side, only to fall off the couch. "Bastards..."

Heading to the break room he noticed it was close to 5:30 in the morning. Downing some Aspirin he sat down at a chair and rested his head on the table top as he waited for the coffee to percolate. As he walked back to the cage with his cup of coffee and the bottle of Aspirin in his pocket he realized that his internal slide show had ended. He wasn't sure when it had stopped but he felt as if area behind his eyes were rubbed raw with too coarse a sand paper and the pounding headache resonated through him. Once inside the cage he locked the door, grabbed his iPod from its docking station and lowered the volume. He needed something a bit more melodic today, as he set the instrumental song _Whoracle_ by In Flames on repeat.

The morning brought with it the staff of the Buy More and another round of gawking as they realized how many items were actually fixed. Chuck had purposely kept a dozen items in the cage shelves to give the appearance that he still had more work to do. Currently on the table were two computers running Windows. Chuck had one defragmenting a massive hard drive that looked like it hadn't been defragged since the day it was installed and another machine performing a scan disk on multiple all the hard drives. He also had a laptop opened in front of him, as he was typing away at it. All in all, Chuck looked like the pinnacle of the aggressive, efficient, multitasking employee. It didn't go unnoticed.

"At-a-boy Bartowski! That's setting a good example." Big Mike announced to the gathered employees. "Let's see you people get to work!"

As 9am rolled by, Sarah walked into the Buy More, scanning the crowd for Chuck but not expecting to actually find him. She noticed Casey walking towards her.

"I just finished talking to Director Graham. He said to keep a close eye on Chuck since he's been so depressed lately." She whispered.

Casey scowled in response, "He didn't go home last night."

"What?" Clearly surprised, Sarah began to walk towards the back of the store. "Was he here all night?"

"Seems that way."

"I don't think he's eaten then in two days." Sarah responded in a worried tone. Casey only grunted as he gave a quick questioning glance at the CIA agent.

They stopped short of entering the back room when they saw Morgan standing outside the door tossing paper clips at Chuck. The two agents eased back so that they wouldn't be seen but were still able to hear and see what was going on. Their eye brows rose in shock as they saw Chuck pull the ear phones from his ears and turn his head slightly in the opposite direction.

"What's up Morgan?" Chuck responded in a flat mechanical voice. The voice seemed so lifeless, so unlock Chuck's normal self. Sarah stared more intently at him.

"Hey dude, you wanna get in some CoD time tonight? We haven't played in a few days and I'm starting to feel the rust settling man, it's makin' me nervous!" Morgan chirped away, his face expectant.

"Not tonight little buddy," Chuck said as he faced the screens again. Morgan visibly became worried and his shoulders slumped, until Chuck added, "How about in two days?"

"DUDE! You're on!" Morgan jumped up, his hand shooting into the air victoriously. "I might even have some new merchandise for us to try out then."

Chuck answered with a nod as he replaced the ear buds. Morgan skipped out of the room, his expression not as worried as it was only a few minutes ago. Nodding to himself, yeah, who was the bestest best friend in the whole world, Morgan, that's who.

The two agents walked into the room from their hiding spot, Casey going directly to the employee schedule. "Looks like Bartowski's in the cage today and tomorrow and then he's off for one day."

"Did you check Buy More surveillance last night?" Sarah asked, her concerned face never leaving Chuck's back.

"Not yet, I'll be checking on that tonight when I get back. Nothing obviously happened since he's still here." Casey responded as he folded his arms.

"Chuck!" Sarah called out, hoping for a reaction but receiving none.

Casey snorted, "You going to start throwing paper clips too?"

Sarah shot him an annoyed look, but her face clearly showed that she wasn't far from tossing anything that could slip through the cage.

"I kinda like this," Casey said as he began to walk back out, "Kid won't get into any trouble holed up in here." Ignoring a scathing look from the CIA agent.

Sarah stayed a few minutes longer, noticing the open bottle of Aspirin sitting at the table, sadness shown clearly in her features before she left to start her day at the Weinerlicious.

Chuck's iPod was turned pretty low and he could hear everything that was being said, it was just that he wasn't registering any conversations. While he looked like he was staring at the laptop or computer screen, if any could look at his face, they would notice that his eyes were unfocused and he was staring at nothing at all.

In reality, Chuck's mind's eye was doing all the seeing, focused inwards as he was slowly replaying his flashes and memories from the first day that he met Sarah. The first moment that he had thought of Sarah, pictured her in his mind, he was slammed with a continuous series of flashes. It took all of his will power to try to ignore what he was seeing, even then not willing to violate her personal information and records.

He imagined burying Sarah's information deep in a vault inside his mind, deeper than where he had tried to bury his feelings for her. He yearned to learn of her past, her real information, it ached all the more knowing that they were only an imaginary closed door away. He had brushed the imaginary vault door with his imaginary hand and let it sink away into the ether that was his mind. His real self hitched a breath as he physically felt the heart wrenching pain of knowing that she had never felt anything for him.

Chuck closeted the information for Casey in the same manner, not wanting to violate his trust, but did so without the emotional toil that had accompanied Sarah's information. He was just too ugly to think about.

His mind was making leaps and bounds cross referencing various bits of information that it had never considered relevant with his previous flashes. The laptop he was typing at was a demo piece that he grabbed after the first set of flashes began to occur. As fast as he possibly could, he was typing in all the information that he learned, sorting through what was new and what they had previously reported. Providing the referencing information and what he believed to be the link or relationship.

Chuck popped another two Aspirins as his headache never really dulled and his eyes ached. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch, it was noon. He had only finished the first two missions.

By 11:30pm, after missing two more visits from Sarah, Chuck sat in the dark home theater room, his head in his hands. The status update with the two directors had lasted a full hour, their shocked expressions had almost stayed plastered on throughout the full meeting as he uploaded and discussed his findings for the day. When the directors did recover, they were boisterous in their encouragement, letting him know he had done an admiral job. When asked if he felt any side effects, he only said, "Migraine."

As he promised to report again the next day, his whole being was too exhausted and mind still throbbing in pain to notice the calculating smile that Director Graham was watching him with.

During the drive home Chuck dropped by a convenience store, picking up four bottles of Aspirin before heading back home to crash. Tomorrow was his last day in the cage, his last day of solitude before stepping back into the real world. As he walked into his room and fell into his bed Chuck could only think how bad he felt from going through today's flashes. He didn't want to imagine what tomorrow's would feel like.

A quiet whispered chant to Crom began but went unfinished as he fell into a deep sleep.

He had to go through all the missions that involved Bryce and Fulcrum tomorrow.

* * *

A/N: I'm writing this while I'm listening to the In Flames discography so that would be my explanation for injecting the songs in this story. I normally don't update this quickly, definitely not one chapter a day, but traffic sucked and ideas kept popping in my head today.


	3. Chapter 3 A Trail of Crumbs

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 3 - A Trail of Crumbs...

Chuck woke to something soft stroking his forehead. It felt soothing, like what a mother's caress would be when you're sick.

"Chuck."

He leaned into the caress, drawing himself closer to the voice. Slowly he opened his eyes, starring up into a dark curtain of hair as he realized that Ellie was standing over him. Her soft worried face highlighted in the moonlight. She must have just gotten off a late shift he thought as he blinked his eyes and tried to stretch, grimacing as his whole abdomen protested with a shot of pain. At least his headache seemed to have temporarily left him.

"Chuck, you left four bottles of Aspirin on the kitchen table. What's the matter?" Ellie asked as she sat further into the bed, facing him.

Chuck clawed at his dress shirt and undershirt, bringing it up mid-chest exposing a purple-black bruising that encompassed the width of his body. Ellie's eyes shot up in surprise as she jumped onto the bed and started to softly feel around his stomach. Chuck responded in hisses as she would brush over certain areas.

"What happened?" Her worried voice a higher pitch than normal.

Opening his mouth to respond he realized that his whole mouth felt dry, parched. "Tripped off the loading dock ledge, clotheslined by handle bar." He whispered out, hating himself for yet again boldly lying to his sister. He was getting so good at it, it was becoming second nature almost. He hated himself.

Ellie shook her head, "You need to be more careful Chuck." She patted his head. "You look exhausted. Are you working today?"

Chuck nodded his head, "Have tomorrow off."

Ellie pulled his shirts back down, covering him. "Get some sleep and don't take too many Aspirins. No more than twelve in twenty-four hours OK?"

Chuck smiled brightly up at her, at least there was one woman in his life who loved him. "Love you sis."

Ellie smiled wide, "Love you too little brother."

When he was relatively sure that Ellie had gone to sleep he got up and headed to the shower. Grabbing a bottle of Aspirin and a bag of fruit Chuck headed out the door to his car. It was 6:45am.

Chuck only had one computer set up in the cage to act as his dummy machine. He had it running every virus checking software he could get his hands on just to make it look complicated and busy. It wasn't so much fooling the other Nerd Herders that he cared about, it was fooling his two handlers. He still needed this solitary time, his mind forming new relationships with every strand of new data that he flashed on as he slowly and agonizingly went through his memory of Bryce and the missions related to Fulcrum.

He had noticed yesterday that the new relationships that his subconscious now formed amongst bits of data was spectacular. He was receiving anywhere from six times to eight times the amount of information that he had previously flashed through. In that same vein though, as his mind followed the relational mappings and bringing new pieces of data, he was finding a lot of unrelated information. The algorithm was flashing on excess information and that took a while to sort out the irrelevant information.

Chuck realized as Bryce's information flowed through him, that he didn't care about conserving his old friend's privacy. He willfully and wholly welcomed all the classified reports of his missions and his encounters. Remembering how well Sarah and Bryce had fought and synchronized themselves during the Fulcrum encounter in the Buy More, he had been awed then. But now, as he absorbed all their past missions he was both pained and shamed.

Sarah, he realized was so underutilized in this mission, to protect him. She had looked so alive when she was fighting along side Bryce. His shame of keeping her with him, his pain of knowing that she would enjoy her work more with Bryce than him. Pain that he could never fill his friend's shoes. Pain in the realization that Sarah still loved Bryce. Jealous that Bryce always showed him up, always ended up on the winning side of things. What did Bryce say, "You have a store full of friends, I only have one."

An image of Sarah floated in his mind. He may have had a few friends but Bryce had every one of his loves. What did a whole store of friends matter sometimes, when you weren't complete.

Chuck flexed his fingers, he was getting too worked up. Cracking his neck and grimacing as he flexed his back and stretched his body, he made a grab for another two pills of Aspirin. He had finished swallowing when he felt something hit his head. Taking his ear plugs from his ears he slightly turned his head to the right.

"Chuck! Chuck!" Morgan excitedly began. "The shipment of new inventory is coming in an hour. The new demo is arriving!" He finished, his voice dropping down to a whisper as he cupped his hands to his mouth.

Chuck had to smile. If he gave up of any chance at love, at least he had Morgan. A figment of Yoda in his head asked him in a bewildered expression, "Great Morgan he is?" Great? No, Morgan was freaking awesome. He had his annoying quirks, but no one could ask for a better best friend. Bryce may have been his best friend at one time, but he couldn't compare to Morgan. He frowned for a second. If Chuck couldn't compare to Bryce and Bryce couldn't compare to Morgan, what did that say about himself?

Not going to go there. Not. Going. There.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Morgan continued talking. "You sure you don't want in on Operation We Gots to Get It?"

Chuck shook his head in the negative. "No way bud. You know you're going to need someone to bail you out when you're all caught right?"

Morgan's face erupted with joy. "Freakin' A. You got my back dude!"

Chuck watched as Morgan strutted out the room, his face softened. "For you, Ellie, and Captain, always. Always."

Chuck turned back to the laptop. He wanted to finish today's exercise as quickly as possible before heading home to crash for a few hours before coming back to report in. Grabbing his iPod he set _Moonshield_ by In Flames, the C64 Karaoke Version on repeat.

As the day snailed by Chuck had caught a glimpse of Sarah standing at the cage's door. His peripheral vision picked up her blond hair and Weinerlicious outfit in the reflection of the dummy computer's monitor. He ignored her and focused on his task at hand.

He never caught the pained and worried expression that flitted across her face. He didn't see her eyes as they scoured him from his unruly hair down his body, taking in every detail of him, his moments, his breathing. He didn't hear her whispered attempt at calling his name. He didn't notice the cage's slight shift as she curled her fingers around the fence wall's openings. He didn't feel the soft whisper of air as she sighed once again.

He did notice when she left.

Chuck looked at his watch, registering the 4:15pm time. He had finished his exercise, he had captured the data, and he had offloaded it all onto his USB thumb drive. He had finished reformatting the laptop's hard drive, doing a complete wipe. The migraine pummeling his skull was a footnote to the shear amount of fear he was feeling. His hands were shacking, his body cold

He had found something in the data as he was sifting through the flashes of information in the past few hours. What he found couldn't wait until tonight's report, he needed to talk to the directors immediately.

Chuck kept the USB drive in his hand and shoved it into his pocket, making a beeline to the showroom floor. He caught sight of Casey and began to head over in his direction, ignoring the shocked expressions from the Buy More employees that did see him. Casey noticed him approaching and had a look of shock on his face as he saw Chuck for the first time.

Casey noticed that Bartowski looked haggard, exhausted, his face drawn, and he was walking hunched over. Casey had heard this mornings exchange between Ellie and the kid, he was surprised when he had found out about the injury. When confirming with Agent Walker this morning she had only been aware of his shoulder wound where the bullet had grazed him. Her face had scrunched up in worry. Casey watched as something caught Bartowski's attention and the kid changed direction.

Chuck saw Big Mike from his peripheral vision and changed course. After a quick discussion and a request for the rest of the day off after informing an ecstatic Big Mike that all the electronics in the cage were fixed, Chuck headed towards the home theater showroom with Big Mike's last statement wafting over him. "You look like shit Bartowski, go hit the sheets."

Chuck gave Casey a look and nodded his head in the direction that he was walking in. It didn't take long before Casey's militant strides brought him along side. "I need to talk to General Beckman and Director Graham right now." Chuck whispered, not looking at the bigger man.

"What? What is it about." Casey growled, his arm reaching out to grab a hold of Bartowski's forearm, "Did you flash?"

Chuck looked around before looking directly into Casey's eyes, "Yes," he stated firmly, "But I need to talk to the directors first before I can talk to you. It's above your pay grade." Oh, he was getting better at lying. He didn't fell all that much guilty about it this time, mostly because he actually enjoyed the shocked look on Casey's face.

"How do you ..."

"Look, just get in contact with the directors. If they want you to know they'll include you, but I need to talk to them now!" Chuck forced, stretching to his maximum height, ignoring the pain lancing from his bruised abdomen.

They stared at each other for a few scant seconds before Casey walked into the home theater room, Chuck following behind. The LCD screen came to life after Casey punched in the commands. Both directors looked surprise at seeing them.

"Report Agent Casey." General Beckman ordered. Chuck idly wondered how these two directors from rivaling intelligence agencies always seemed to be together and didn't Direct Graham ever get tired of standing?

"Bartowski wanted to talk to you in private, it appeared urgent." Casey ground out through his teeth as he stared hard at the source of his irritation.

The directors looked in Chuck's direction and it took all of his will not to giggle idiotically as he was flashing his eye brows up and down and not so subtlety nodding his head in Casey's direction. General Beckman rolled her eyes, "Agent Casey, could you leave and wait outside."

Chuck registered the utter shock on Casey's face as he slowly walked out the room, his eyes boring into the back of Chuck's head. Chuck felt the flush from the scrutiny and when he was sure the door was locked he pulled out the USB from his pocket and started to send the data to the two directors.

Casey's cell phone was out in his hand the moment he left the home theater room, hitting speed dial, "Walker, we have a situation."

It had been ten minutes and Chuck was in full swing, "So the new algorithm began pulling data from these past few missions and they all seemed independent and trivial from any dangerous bad guy type of thing. But when I flashed on this last bit of information, all these independent strands of information fell together."

Chuck currently had a list of approximately twenty shipment manifests displayed on the screen. All but two of the manifests had already past date, with the remaining two arriving tomorrow and in three days time. The list contained manifest id, date of arrival, port of entry, company, shipping country, expected destination.

"I don't quite see where you're going with this Bartowski, it looks like a bunch of electronics being shipped in. We didn't tackle these items since they were low on the radar." Director Graham said as he scoured the lists. General Beckman nodded, looking equally perplexed.

Chuck's shoulders sagged upon hearing that last statement. He brought up a parts list up, hoping his next few bits of information would allow them to see what he was getting at. He wasn't sure if he wanted to stand out there and state it in case the directors took offense, he still wasn't sure how to handle these briefings.

"If you look at the parts list that I've just pulled up, I've highlighted the items that match those on the shipping manifests." Chuck saw that General Beckman was about to speak and quickly added, "Can we assume that the remaining items on this list are relatively easy to acquire in-country?"

The directors looked at the non-highlighted items, noting that they were ordinary industrial parts. They nodded their heads.

"This parts list is used to manufacture this," Chuck whispered as he punched up the name of the item that had chilled him to the bone.

"Oh My God." The director's stunned shock reverberated through the room.

A split second later both directors were on the phone, "Get Agent Casey and Walker in here immediately!"

Chuck quickly walked to the door and opened it, facing the surprised looks of both his handlers. "They want to talk to you."

Casey and Sarah maintained their look of surprise and confusion as they looked on the LCD screen and saw both their commanders in near panic, shouting orders on the phones.

"I need intell at these addresses and the location of the identified items and their where abouts. Infiltrate and terminate hostiles with prejudice." Director Graham was demanding into his phone, as he punched some commands into a laptop.

"Gather a heavy tactical insertion team. I need eyes on the address I'm sending your way immediately. Planning and orders will be given by Agent Casey of NSA and Agent Walker from the CIA. I want a briefing in 30 minutes on blueprints and initial plans from strike commanders is that understood?" General Beckman ordered into the phone.

The General looked at the two agents, "You'll be leading multiple strike teams into potentially hostile environments tomorrow. Your primary mission is to locate and secure the item listed below that I'm highlighting. Id of the item will be performed by the Intersect," Beckman paused and looked at Chuck, "from a secure mobile location."

"Yes ma'am." The agents acknowledged before looking at Chuck with bewildered expressions.

Chuck pointed to the bottom of the screen.

"Impossible..." Sarah whispered out, her eyes bugging out.

"What the fu..." Casey started to say.

"Mr. Bartowski, we'll need you at full capacity tomorrow. Head back to recuperate for the rest of the night, you'll be briefed early tomorrow morning. You're dismissed." Director Graham stated.

Chuck nodded and headed for out of the room.

"You understand the immediate threat this situation is agents?" Director Graham asked sternly. After getting nods in confirmation from the two agents he and the General began filling them in on the background information.

"Head back to Casey's apartment and draw up plans. We need to gather intell and plan today to execute tomorrow." General Beckman said ten minutes later. "We have a briefing in 20."

The moment the screen went blank, Sarah was running out the store hoping for any signs of Chuck, but already knowing that he was long gone. Casey followed closely behind her as they went for their respective vehicles, not believing what they had just been informed.

The prototype schematic for the MLR2G, a thirty foot monstrosity called the Mobile Long Range Rail Gun, was floating heavily in their minds. Capable of firing a fifteen pound projectile at ten times the speed of sound with enough accuracy to hit a two foot target six hundred nautical miles away, it was possible of executing anything and anyone without any means to defend.

Sarah had screeched into the parking spot at the Bartowski's residence, engaging the parking break and slamming the car into gear, she was standing outside the Morgan door before she even knew she had moved. Looking in she saw Chuck stripped down to shorts and an undershirt passed out on his back. When he had opened the home theater door to let them in she had been shocked by more than the situation. Chuck really did look bad.

She brought her right hand up to his blinds, resting it lightly on one of them and parting the one below to afford her a more unobstructed view. She didn't notice as her index finger seemed to trace his outline as her eyes slowly looked him over. Almost as if he mystically knew she was looking at him, Chuck draped his arm around his stomach protectively and rolled onto his side, facing away from her scrutiny.

"You stand there any longer and people will think you're a pervert," Casey's voice sounded behind her. He opened his apartment's door, "We got work to do."

Sarah let out a sigh as she gave him one last glance, straightened her self out and headed to Casey's apartment. The directors had ordered them not to confront Chuck and told them that their primary responsibility at the moment was leading the planing of tomorrow's raid. Looking at her watch, she noted that they had a few minutes before the briefing began.

Casey had the two directors on one screen while a group of five agents were shown in a meeting room on the second screen. Their eyes quirked up slightly when noticing Sarah's Weinerlicious outfit.

"Woods, what's the status of eyes on ground?" General Beckman asked.

"We have four sets of eyes at the pier, we're ten minutes from blueprints of the buildings in the surrounding area. We have intell coming in for the blueprints for the shipping vessel hauling our package. ETA on ship prints are twenty minutes." One of the agents, a dark haired man about forty responded.

"Kramer, staging area?" Graham asked.

"We've secured a warehouse five miles out. Hardware and electronics are being set up as we speak. I've sent you the address." Another agent, opposite side of the table from Woods, responded.

If Sarah had to hazard a guess, the NSA agents were seated on the left side of the table and the CIA agents were seated on the right. The two agents in the furthest seats loomed largest amongst them.

"What of our assault teams?" Beckman asked.

"NSA has three teams of three set as assault, three snipers, and one bird." The large agent in the back left of the table.

"CIA has five teams of two, four snipers, and a bird. All teams are on site at staging. We'll have Coast Guard patrolling to close off the water." The other large agent in the back right of the table responded.

"This is the breakdown agents," Beckman began. "Connors, NSA and Gomez, CIA you have lead assault on your specifc troop groups. You'll be formulating ground movement and attack. Agent Casey, NSA and Agent Walker, CIA will be on assault detail but they'll be lead intelligence. Woods and Kramer, you'll provide logistics and on-site intell. Those five sets of eyes feed through you. I want a mobile command center outfitted for routing of all video and communications. We'll have an analysis on hand to provide direct information to Casey and Walker. Understood?"

Beckman waited till she got confirmation from all the available agents. "Update us every hour. Set at stage in 30. Casey, Walker, stay online. Gentlemen, you're dismissed."

The agents from the meeting room stood up and the screen went blank, leaving only General Beckman and Director Graham.

"Bartowski will be introduced as an analyst. You'll be bringing him in to the staging area tomorrow morning at 1400 Zulu for briefing. He'll be sitting at mobile command with Woods and Kramer, so let him know that he must not give away his flashes or the Intersect. The cargo ship is expected to land at 2300 Zulu. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am." Both agents responded. "Head to staging and we'll get status in an hour." The screen went blank.

Casey's smile cracked wide open, his eyes lighted up. He couldn't wait. He began to efficiently gather his assault gear, his smile getting bigger has he grabbed his weapons.

Sarah headed out the door, aiming to go back to her hotel room to change and prep her gear. She had a small smile on her face, which promptly fell as she stared at Chuck's window while she walked by. Knocking on Chuck's door she set her face into a calm smile. When Ellie opened the door Sarah offered a genuine smile for the doctor, "Hi Ellie, is Chuck home?"

Surprised at seeing Sarah at this time, Ellie allowed her entrance before hesitatingly replying, "He's in his room," Not wanting him to be disturbed from his much needed rest, she continued, "He looked pretty exhausted and crashed the moment he got back."

"Is he alright? I haven't been able to see him for the past few days, they had him locked in the cage for the past four days."

Ellie sighed, "He must be overworked. He also got injured pretty bad the other day. Fell off the loading dock ledge he said and slammed into a hand rail or something. He's got some pretty bad bruising around his abdomen."

Sarah's eyes rose wide, knowing the lie for what it was. She didn't even think that he might have injured himself with the rope that was tied around his waste. They had thought he was knocked out from landing on the concrete floor. "He's alright though right?"

"Yeh, he should be fine. He won't be able to stand straight for a while though, the bruising was pretty heavy." Ellie looked back at Sarah, "Did you need him for something?"

"Oh, We had planned to go out early tomorrow to just relax at the beach for the day since we both have off. I was going to tell him to pick me up at six am tomorrow."

Ellie's face broke into a large smile. "That's great! He definitely looks like he needs the time off."

Sarah headed to Chuck's room, opening the door without knocking and closing it behind her. Taking a second to just look at him closer, she saw that he looked even more tired. Putting her hand onto his shoulder, she gently rubbed him while softly calling his name.

"Sarah?" Chuck moaned out as his eyes open, confusion claiming his face. "What's wrong?"

She gave him a grand smile, he was a such a caring person. "Tomorrow, meet me at my hotel. We'll be leaving there at six am to head to the staging area to brief you on the mission okay?"

"Six am... your hotel." Chuck repeated back as she watched his tired eyes trace her face.

Sarah noticed there was something missing in his eyes or his face, it was almost like he was looking at her differently. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she didn't have the time at the moment, she needed to get to the staging area to do plan tomorrow's mission.

She nodded her head and gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze, "Right, see you tomorrow at six."

* * *

A/N: Despite the way I've been portraying things, I am a complete Chuck/Sarah fan. So the question is not an if, but a when. Well, maybe an if.

Somehow this chapter slipped out easily too. Next one should be more action packed, guns guns and more guns.


	4. Chapter 4 Proving Grounds

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck.

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Chapter 4 - Proving Grounds

Chuck knocked on Sarah's door again, waiting for her to open it. This was unlike her to not answer the door quickly, especially when they were due to head out for a mission. He waited a few more seconds before he knocked again, a little more forcefully.

"Can I help you sir?" Asked a hotel maid as she pushed a cart forward.

"Thank you, but no. I'm just waiting for a friend of mine." Chuck responded, giving her a worried smile.

"Well, the lady that stayed in that room you're knocking at checked out late last night." The maid gently said, her eyes filling with pity.

Chuck looked at her bewildered.

"She went to join Bryce, she still loves him you know." The maid put a comforting hand on his shoulder, "There's just nothing you can give her. You're just a job. You've always been a job."

Chuck's eyes snapped open, his breathing coming in short gasps. Darkness greeted him as the ceiling in his room swam into view. She even haunted his dreams. Looking at the clock, it was already 4am. "This sucks."

Chuck grabbed the darkest t-shirt from his drawer he could find after his shower, he tossed on a jacket and climbed out his window, trying to avoid any confrontation with Ellie or Awesome. Looking at his watch he realized he still had an hour and a half left to kill before he needed to be at Sarah's hotel. Chuck got into his car and drove aimlessly, finding himself parked in front of the beach, in front of the location where she had asked him to trust her.

He sat staring at the rhythm of the waves as they lapped at the sand on the beach. The sound that surrounded him helped in soothing his frayed nerves. He had pushed the thoughts of Sarah out of his mind as he sat down, but that only made room for the nervousness and fear of the impending mission. He had heard the orders that the directors had shouted into their phones. This was going to be a much larger mission that anything that he had encountered previously.

Today would be his first test since he had set his plans in motion. He needed to prove himself today, he needed to function professionally, he needed to follow the orders given to him, he needed to identify the part, he needed to stay in the car.

Grabbing a handful of sand, Chuck let it fall slowly from the space between his fingers. Since he still had plenty of time left, he decided to think through what could possibly happen today. What could he anticipate and prepare himself for.

Being honest with himself he had no idea what to expect. He assumed that they would storm the cargo ship and split into multiple teams to search the decks for enemies. Since he was going to be observing from a car he assumed that he would be in a van with a similar setup as he was in when they were infiltrating the Triad mansion. What concerned him was the potential for the quantity of monitors that he would have to keep an eye on as the teams would search through the ship. He imagined about approximately ten agents all with cameras mounted on their helms. That would mean that he would have to monitor at least 10 different screens or windows.

He was going to need a method to be able to figure out which screen belonged to which agent so that he could be able to quickly communicate for them to stop or turn around so that he would be able to get a better view of something. Masking tape and a pen should solve that he problem he hoped.

The next biggest issue he could think of was identifying the actual item that they were going after today. The shipping manifest stated that the part of the MLR2G that was coming in would be one of the massive pulsating power generator. Each generator itself was about the size of two industrial strength refrigerators. With this size an item, they weren't going to be searching for it in a box hidden in a room somewhere. They would actually need to determine which one of the freight crates carried the actual item. That would mean either an x-ray search or a manual search of each crate, unless there was a proper labeling and identification system involved.

Looking at his watch, Chuck got up and patted the sand away as he walked back to the car. His last worry could easily be solved by a seat belt or with rope. He would have no other option but to stay in the car if he was tied down.

Sarah opened her hotel door after the first knock, greeting him in black TDU's. "Hi, give me a second."

Chuck took a few steps back to give her space as she dropped a large duffel bag through the door before turning around and bringing out two metal cases, one of them larger and longer than the other. Having seen enough action movies and played enough Rainbow Six games Chuck figured Sarah's weapons were housed in the cases. Even though they looked heavier than the duffel bag, Chuck chose to grab the duffel bag and hoist it over his shoulder. No need to start the day off on the wrong foot by getting between a girl and her assault rifle.

When Sarah turned around after locking her door she was surprised to see Chuck holding her duffel bag. "You don't have to carry that. I can get them."

Chuck just shrugged and gave her a smile, although it didn't really reach his eyes. "Ladies first." He said as he swept his arm in front of him.

Sarah gave him a smile as she picked up her two metal cases and headed for the car. Her eyes caught sight of grains of sand speckled throughout his pants, shoes, and the lower half of his jacket. Her face frowned slightly as she passed him in the hallway. With the rear seats folded down, the gear laid securely behind them. Chuck had automatically and wordlessly sat in the passenger side of the vehicle, letting Sarah drive. As she got in the driver's side door she gave him a curious look that Chuck saw.

Shrugging, he responded, "Instead of you having to tell me to turn here and there, I figure it would be more efficient if you drove since you already know where it is." He then proceeded to recline his seat back a little and closed his eyes, missing the odd look that Sarah gave him before she started on the road.

Chuck was getting more and more nervous as they drove. Normally he would have chattered up a storm, but with the awkward relationship that he and Sarah had after the heli-pad along with how angry she was at him after their last mission, he thought it the better part of valor to try to focus on a happy place. What shocked him enough to open his eyes when he realized it, was that his happy place was now the Buy More cage.

"What's the matter Chuck?" Sarah asked, when she saw him start slightly.

"Nervous." Chuck replied, giving her a sincere but weak grin.

Sarah's face softened as she alternated between looking at the street and looking at him, "Don't be. You'll be safe and all you'll have to do is watch the monitors and tell us if you flash on something as well as ID the package. Simple. We'll take care of the rest." Sarah slowed the car to a stop at a red light, "Just remember to..."

"Stay in the car." They both said together.

Sarah gave him a genuinely bright smile and his heart fluttered. Damn traitorous heart.

"How come we're not driving with Casey? I would have thought _Mr. I'll shoot you before selling you this TV_ would enjoy packing his car full of fire power?" Chuck inwardly grimaced. Sarah flashed one smile at him and he shoved his professional distance off to the side so fast. He was so much weak sauce.

"Our cover is that we're going to the beach all day today since we both have the day off." Sarah responded, not looking at him as she pulled into an industrial area, "It would have been weird if Ellie accidentally saw Casey come with us, or me dressed like this."

"Ah."

"We're here." Sarah commented as she parked the car in front of a large dark building. Chuck grabbed her duffel bag again as he followed her to a door. She punched a security code into a keypad and entered when the light turned green.

"What? No shave and a ... hair... cut?" Chuck quipped nervously as he entered, his voice dying quickly as he met one of the largest men he'd ever seen in his life. The mountain of a man stared at him hard before giving Sarah a quick look.

"He's with me, our analyst." She responded as she grabbed Chuck by the arm and proceeded to pull him along.

"So large." Chuck whispered, still staring in scared fascination at the man.

"You spooks definitely pick a weird bunch for analysts." A deep voice boomed in the direction that they were walking.

Chuck snapped his attention in the direction of the voice and his jaw dropped. There were multiple tables set up in a large warehouse space. The largest of the combination of tables had maps and blueprints laid out on top of it. Behind it was a transparent dry erase board with drawings and labels written on it. To the left was a large bank of computers and multiple monitors, with two large 42" LCD monitors. About half a dozen tables were laid out cafeteria fashion, except instead of food, there were stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.

Yet, it wasn't all the hardware that had shocked him enough to literally stand there open mouthed. It was the group of men that were standing either around the main table, at the weapons table, or just walking around. At least a half dozen of them were as large as the mountain that he had just walked past and the ones that were either his height or shorter still looked like they could easily break his chicken neck with their pinkie.

"Does the US government shop at the we breed burly angry men the size of a yeti store?"

Every head in the place swiveled in Chuck's direction. Casey had a hand covering his face as he was slowly shaking it. Sarah just grimaced, shooting Chuck an annoyed look.

"Did I say that out loud?" Chuck hysterically laughed, while rubbing the back of neck. When he noticed nothing but angry stares, "I'll just be quiet now."

A brief introduction had all the NSA and CIA assault members looking Chuck up and down and obviously deemed him not only incompetent but also a potential weakness to the mission at hand. Afterwards Chuck found himself the primary audience of the strike commanders as well as the two directors that were on one of the 42" displays as they began his briefing. The other display showed a schematic of the pulse power generator that they were to secure in today's mission.

Agent Woods started to give the outline of the surrounding area, "The cargo ship will be arriving and parking itself length wise along this pier. There are three massive cranes that are used to offload the cargo and they are located on the pier. There are two immediate buildings located behind these cranes, the length of these buildings lie in line with the pier's edge. The south building has ID of B1 while the north building is B2. There is a third building that is perpendicular, forming an 'L' formation with the first building. This building is designated B3. We'll be securing these three buildings and using them to seal the perimeter.

"The mobile command center, where myself, Woods, and Bartowski will be stationed, will be hidden and located behind these buildings, nestled in the 'L'. The cargo ship will have no line of sight to us and we'll be removed from direct contact.

"Both birds will be providing cover support once we've boarded. Coast guard cutters will provide sea based perimeter support."

A tall red haired agent proceeded to point to various locations on the map. "NSA will position two of its snipers at the western corners of B1, their call signs are rifles 1 and 2. The third NSA sniper will be situated at the south most crane, designated crane 1. His call sign is rifle 3."

Another agent continued, "CIA will position two snipers at B2 with positioning at middle west and north western corner, their call signs are rifles 4 and 5. One CIA sniper will be positioned at the north west corner of B3 with a call sign of rifle 6. The final CIA sniper will be positioned in the north most crane, designated crane 3 with a call sign of rifle 7."

"With us so far Carmichael?" Agent Connors stepped up and not really waiting for a reply continued, "Once the boat has been tied down, the coast guard will board to initiate take over procedure. At that point assault teams will board and begin their search. Team designations will be by two numerical values. The first value being the team number and the second value being the team member. For example, I'm in team one so my designation is one one. Agent Casey is with me and his designation is 1-4. NSA teams are 1 through 3 and CIA teams are 4 through 8.

Team 5 will secure cargo top most cargo level. Teams 1 and 6 will secure first deck level. Teams 3 and 4 will secure the second deck. Agent Walker is in team 4, her designation is 4-3. Team 7 will secure bridge and that level. Teams 2 and 8 will secure the final level of cargo."

"Each member of the team will have helmet cameras to provide live feed back to you in mobile command." Agent Gomez started, "Securing the ship will take approximately 20 minutes. Once it is secured we'll access the cargo mapping to determine which container has our package and where it is. When that information is determined we'll have the pier's crane operators moving only those cargo containers that will need to be removed to get to the package."

Agent Kramer placed both hands on the table, "Woods and I will be coordinating information coming in and aiding in ground troop movement. Agents Casey and Walker will be providing fire support but also will be leading during the extraction and identification of the package."

Everyone at the table and the two directors shifted their eyes to Chuck. "Any questions?" Kramer asked with a wicked grin.

Chuck realized that he should have rubbed antiperspirant all over his body earlier this morning. Clearing his throat and trying to put all his focus on the task at hand.

"Will," Chuck's voice came out higher than he had hoped and coughed into his hand, "The feeds from the, uhh, camera helms. Will the monitors have each feed labeled with the person's designation?"

Agent Kramer's face showed actual surprise at what seemed like an intelligent question, "Correct. Each incoming feed will show the agent's last name as well as their designation."

"I'd like to be able to take a look at the mobile command vehicle and get myself oriented soon." Chuck's hand began fidgeting with the pen that he was holding, "I want to get myself oriented with the hardware so that I don't end up trying to figure things out when I should be concentrating."

Agent Woods nodded as he crossed his arms, "I can show you the van after this briefing. Anything else?"

"Nope, no. I'm good, uh... thanks!" Chuck answered. He only got a few grunts in return.

"Ok, final thing. We'll start sweeping and securing B 1, 2, and 3 at 2000 Zulu. A perimeter will be established. The cargo ship is supposed to land at 2300 Zulu."

All the personnel nodded their heads in confirmation. "Carmichael, you're with me." Agent Woods commanded as he walked towards the back of the warehouse. Chuck took notice of the shiny black van that had it's doors open as wires were still hanging out everywhere.

Staring at Woods' broad back and tree like arms, Chuck felt like the fat kid.

Chuck checked his watch again as he sat in the back of the van with Agents Woods and Kramer. One side of the van's wall was covered in monitors, each one showing the different perspectives from each different troops position. They were now 15 minutes till 2300 Zulu time and the coast guard had radioed in to confirm that the cargo ship was coming in on time. Chuck looked at the window that displayed the view from the camera helm labeled "Walker, 4-3."

He let out a little sigh, not seeing the other two agents in the van taking notice of it. Earlier before they had left the staging are to begin the mission Chuck had been sitting in the van's passenger seat trying to make it look like he wasn't fascinated with everything that Sarah had been doing.

She looked good while checking her equipment, she looked good when she put the equipment harness on, she looked good when she began putting her pistol into its holster and the extra pistol clips into her back hip slot, she looked good when she loaded the extra MP5 clips into her assault vest and left thigh pouch, and she definitely looked good when she strapped the MP5 submachine gun to her chest.

It had been so easy in the Buy More cage where he couldn't see her, where he was able to stamp down the feelings and need to have her attention. Here, looking at her, he felt her gravitational pull. He justified his not so subtle watching of her as his way of getting it out of the way. Like any addict, he was getting his fix. When she was at a distance he would allow himself to fawn over her, but in close proximity he told himself that he would slam the walls down and treat her in the professional manner that she wanted.

Unrequited love sucked.

"Here it comes." Rifle 3's voice echoed through the loud speaker in the van. Chuck snapped himself out of his day dream and looked at rifle 3's display window. The cargo ship loomed large as it began it's pier side landing procedure.

Chuck quickly grabbed the seat belt and securely fastened it to his chair. He was not going to leave the car dammit.

The moment the cargo ship was securely tied down, three coast guard officers boarded the boat. A few minutes later, they gave the all clear.

"Teams 1 through 8 go, go, go. Snipers, hold." Agent Woods sounded off.

Chuck watched the window display of rifle 2 as a stream of black clad soldiers quickly progressed from B1 and B2, their rifles trained at the visible ledges on the ship. He watched through rifle 1's eyes as the two helicopters zoomed into cover position.

Team 7 was the first to reach the top of the ramp before heading off into the direction of the stairwell that would lead them to the bridge. One-by-one the different teams marched up the ramp and dispersed to their designated levels for their sweep. Chuck's eyes scanned the screens trying to see everything and kept himself on the edge, waiting for a flash.

"7-1, contact." The voice crackled in the van as the corresponding screen showed flashes of gun fire, but just as quickly 7-2's screen had zeroed in on the target from around the corner.

"7-2, tango down."

As team 7 walked by the felled body of the hostile, Chuck flashed. "7-2, tango was Steven Harper." He communicated back, the new algorithm in his mind brought up extra information, requiring him to sort through it as quickly as possible, "He's consistently worked with a Vladimir Petrofski, blond, blue eyes, a hawk tattoo on his left shoulder. Keep your eye out."

"7-2, affirmative."

Agent Woods and Kramer looked at Chuck in astonishment as he kept scanning the screens. His free hands typing information at a laptop.

"Snipers, weapons free." Agent Kramer added as he swiveled back to his screens.

"1-1, contact."

"6-2, contact."

Sounds of gunfire communicated over the radio filled the van as the assault teams reported each hostile encounter.

"1-1, tango down."

"1, tango was Robert Givens, ex-Seals. Expert in diversion and evasion tactics. Beware of booby trapped doorways."

"1, affirmative."

"4-1, contact." Chuck's eyes snapped to Sarah's screen. He could see her behind another agent as he leaned back and out to try to see around the corner. He watched as 4-2 provided cover fire before 4-1 picked the hostile down.

"4-1, tango down."

"7-2, contact." A burp of automatic pistol fire was heard before, "7-1, tango down."

"6-2, tango down."

"7-1, on-site. Bridge secure."

"6, tango was Bruce Webber, demolitions specialist." Chuck quickly replied the moment he flashed on team six's downed hostile. "C4 with line triggers are his signature."

"All teams, proceed with caution. Zones may be hot." Agent Woods ordered.

"3-1, contact."

"3-2, contact. We're pinned down."

"4-1, move your team for support. Make your way through the left side of your level. Enemy is 12 doors on the right." Woods commanded.

"4-1, affirmative."

"2-1, contact."

"2-2, tango down."

"4-3, contact." Chuck quickly moved his eyes to Sarah's screen, watching as she ducked in and out as sparks from gunfire hit the edge of her hiding area.

"4-2, tango down." Chuck breathed a sigh of relief, the belt around his lap digging into his legs and waist.

"2-1, contact, contact, contact."

"8-1, flank. 2's hostile is in sixth room on your left." Kramer spoke.

"8-1, affirmative."

"Rifle 3, tango down."

"Rifle 7, tango down."

"4-2, your tango was ex-Marine Charles Mass, worked heavily with a sniper, Henry Chadsworth. Caucasian, black hair, brown eyes, cobra tattoo on left forearm."

"Rifle 3, tango down."

"8, on-site for 2."

"8-1, breaching." Chuck watched fascinated as the agent's installed a breaching charge to the door before stepping back. A few quick seconds later the door imploded sending the heavy metal backwards into the room.

"8-1, breached."

"8-2, tango down."

"8-1, tango down." The display on the screen showed a bloody and crumbled body behind the heavy metal door projectile. Chuck felt slightly nauseous.

"4-1, on-site for 3. Flash 3."

"3-1, flashing." A bright illumination glowed at the edges of the screens for team 3 after they tossed a flash bang into the hallway. Team 4 moved in, guns hot.

"4-1, tango down."

"4-2, tango down."

"4-1, we found that sniper friend."

Chuck's head was starting to pound ferociously as he was getting flash after flash, but he didn't have time to rest. A lot of the information he flashed on wasn't of much immediate use to the assault team so he let his fingers fly over the keyboard recording what he found.

"8, tango was Jordan McKay, heavy use of claymores."

"8-1, affirmative."

"1-1, contact."

"1-3, tango down."

"2-1, clear."

"8-1, clear. 4 claymore traps disarmed."

"5-1 contact. Can't see them."

"Sniper 3, I have eyes ... tango down."

"1-1, clear. 2 bombs disarmed."

"6-1, clear."

"3-1, clear."

"4-1, clear."

"5-1, clear."

"Affirmative, we are all clear. Bring up a perimeter." Woods remarked, "Good job."

The two agents in the van turned to Chuck, their faces showing a good bit of admiration. They found him popping two Aspirins as he fumbled for some napkins in his pocket. He titled his head back and held the napkin to his nose. His nose had starting bleeding close to the end of the assault, but he didn't get a moment's chance to grab a tissue to stem the flow. Looking down at himself he was glad he at least he wore dark clothes today.

"You okay Carmichael?" Kramer asked.

Chuck glanced his way, "You got anymore tissue paper?"

Four hours later, the crane was lifting the cargo container that had been identified as the one on the shipping manifest.

"We're proceeding to open." Sarah's voice came through the communication. Chuck could see on some of the screens that the agents had their guns trained on the door to the container.

Sarah and another agent each opened the doors to the container. Flashlights illuminated the interior, the pulse power generator sitting in the middle of the container.

"Can you ID?" Sarah asked.

"Package confirmed." Chuck responded, feeling light headed, his head slammed with a migraine, and the floor around him was littered with too many bloody tissue paper.

* * *

A/N: I have the story outlined already and theoretically organized into chapters, but as I write I'm filling in more details that have forced me to make chapter cut offs at different locations. An example being the end of this chapter was initially supposed to be the end of chapter 3. I seems to be working out OK so far though, allowing me to build more background information in.

As you may have noticed, this story focuses upon Chuck and his inner workings. I prefer to write in a way where the reader views things from a particular character's view point. That means that thoughts and decisions by other characters are only dramatized by way of their actions and words. It allows me to build deeper suspense and keeps my main character as well as the audience completely out of the loop.

Hopefully this writing method is working.

Thanks for the suggestion on his cover name. I somehow was going to use it, but completely forgot, that's writing a story at 3am for you.

Terms:

_TDU – Tactical Dress Uniforms_


	5. Chapter 5 Standing on My Own Two Feet

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 5: Standing on My Own Two Feet

"Where's Carmichael?" General Beckman asked as she looked amongst the group of people gathered. The NSA and CIA assault team were once again back at their staging area, facing the monitor that had both General Beckman and Director Graham staring back at them. They had only initiated their debriefing.

Sarah was about to make a comment when Agent Woods spoke up, "He's crashed on a cot in the back. He's not doing too hot."

Sarah and Casey were looking at Woods, not too pleased with him or Kramer at the moment. After she and Casey had supervised the securing of the pulse power generator onto a guarded truck for transportation to a NSA facility, they got into their Suburbans and headed back to the staging area to meet up with the mobile command group. After getting out of the car Sarah noticed that mobile command was already there. She started sprinting to the door when she noticed that Agent Woods and Kramer each had one of Chuck's shoulder slung over theirs as they helped him into the building.

She had demanded to know what happened but was only greeted by a non-committal promise to explain later, they needed to start setting up for a debriefing. Her attention had been drawn away when Casey shouted at her; he was staring into the back of the van. Sarah's eyes had bugged when she saw the amount of blood stained tissues. She had been like a Valkyrie riding into war as she stormed into the warehouse, about to demand an immediate explanation when the large display lighted up with the faces of their superiors.

"Explain." Graham's tense voice commanded.

"I don't know what type of analyst he is, but he's one of the best I've seen. Ever." Woods began, causing Sarah's and Casey's face to quirk in shock before settling into proud smiles; Casey's was more a grimace.

Woods continued on with his explanation, "Carmichael was able to provide effective and immediate on-site intelligence about hostiles, their background, techniques, and possible partners. This allowed us to defuse multiple explosives. Towards the end of securing the ship, he started to have a nose bleed.

"He didn't take time to take care of it and let it bleed out for another five minutes as he was so busy recording data and providing intell. When the ship was secure he was able to finally grab a tissue to try to stem the flow of blood. He kept bleeding for another 10 minutes. We noticed that he had a bottle of Aspirin and he had downed some during the mission.

"When Agent Kramer and myself asked him if he was ok, he complained of a migraine. We noticed that he took another two Aspirins as we were waiting for the cargo containers to be moved. After he identified the package, he had closed his eyes and we had let him sleep. He was pretty loopy when we roused him and had to carry him to the cot. We're not certain but we think his blood may not be clotting properly if he's taken as many Aspirins as we suspect."

Director Graham was on the phone halfway through Woods' explanation. When the explanation was done he said, "You should be expecting a CIA doctor very soon." He nodded to the General.

"Proceed with the debriefing."

Ten minutes into the briefing the doctor had arrived and she was escorted to where Chuck was lying. The complete debriefing was over in 30 minutes and the doctor was waiting to provide the directors and update of Chuck's status.

"He's dehydrated, malnourished, and suffering from blood loss. Though not enough blood was lost to be too dangerous, combined with the dehydrated and malnourished state his body just shut down. He was lucid enough for a few seconds during my exam, although he may have confused me with someone else." The doctor looked at Sarah before facing the screen again. While the doctor did not share any resemblance to Sarah, she did have long blond hair. Sarah's face scrunched into an frown.

"He was able to tell me that he's used the maximum allowed dosage of Aspirin, for the past 3 days." The doctor continued, her eyebrows scowling a little, "It was indeed the Aspirin that prevented his nose bleed from clotting."

The doctor held up a sheet of paper, "I've hooked him into a saline IV treatment that will need to be replaced periodically. I have instructions written here on how to change the saline bag. I also suggest that he refrain from taking anymore Aspirin at the moment, at least till his system flushes out what's currently in there. I've told him that much before he went back to sleep."

Sarah reached her hand out and took the instructions.

"Thank you doctor." General Beckman responded. The doctor nodded her head as she headed out the door. Once the room was secure again General Beckman continued, "We still have one more shipment that we need to secure in 3 days. Luck, it seems is with us as the cargo ship is arriving at the same pier as today's shipment. We can obviously expect heavier resistance on the ground once the people that the package was meant for find out that it's been intercepted.

"Rest up tonight. We'll meet again tomorrow evening at 0100 Zulu. Agents Casey and Walker, we have issues to discuss tomorrow morning at 1500 Zulu. Make sure to bring Carmichael. Also, Make sure to keep eyes on the location."

Later that evening, Sarah opened the door to her hotel room, quickly going back into the hallway to help Casey's burden. Casey was supporting Chuck, Chuck's one arm slung over Casey's shoulder as he was practically lifting Chuck up. Sarah, with one arm holding the Saline bag went back to help support the unconscious man.

"Put him on the bed," Sarah said as she brought a lamp closer to the right side of her bed.

Once Casey had placed Chuck on the bed, Sarah hung the Saline bag onto the lamp. She tapped the bag a few times to make sure that it was still flowing. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her hand looking like it wanted so badly to touch her charge. Casey took a seat at one of the chairs facing the large window. They had put Chuck in the back seat of the Suburban, hanging the Saline IV on the hand hold. Sarah had followed in Chuck's Nerd Herder.

"What the hell do you think is going on with him?" Casey asked as he gazed out the window.

"You've been watching him at the Buy More, when did he get a chance to flash on anything?" Sarah asked as she kept her eyes on the man in her bed, her hand unconsciously finding Chuck's.

"He's been holed up in that cage for the past 4 days starting at 5am and arrives home at 1am, when he did get home. I don't think he got the chance to flash on anything."

"You get anything on the Buy More surveillance footage before and after hours?"

"Just our boy in the cage all day and going to the home theater, I guess for a late night nap before he heads home."

"Ok, and how come he went straight to Beckman and Graham? He's always come to us first. And how come they listened?"

"Cuz, I needed to start making something of myself." Chuck grumbled out, his voice heavy with sleep.

"Chuck!" Sarah nearly shouted as she scooted closer to him, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been staring at the sun for too long." Chuck responded, moving his right arm and laying it in front of his eyes.

"What do you mean _start making something of yourself_?" Casey asked as he walked up to the side of the bed, crossing his arms.

Sarah gave Casey a scornful look, obviously not done with her line of questioning.

"Beckman told me you guys thought I was depressed and acting like a spoiled brat these past few days." Chuck continued in a flat voice, not looking at them.

Sarah sucked in a breath, her face going slack with shock while Casey narrowed his eyes, "When did you talk to General Beckman?"

Chuck peeked an eye out from beneath his arm, "You want to keep asking questions or you want me to tell you what's going on?"

Casey seemed to have an internal argument; his hands twitched like they wanted to strangle him, but his curiosity and need to be informed of the situation prevailed.

"After getting chewed out by everyone that last mission," Chuck covered his eyes again, pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to say what he needed to say if he kept realizing he had an audience, "I needed time to myself to figure some things out. Was I depressed? Yeh, you're darn tootin'. I needed this time and I couldn't take the chance to flash on anything.

"I figured that the best thing to do was not talk to anyone, make sure I didn't see anyone, and not see anything that could potentially trigger a flash. The best place for that was the cage. I figured no terrorist would be stupid enough to send their computer with evil plots and world ending contraption designs to a Buy More to get fixed.

"Granted I might have moped a little, but you know what I figured out while I was sitting there, elbow deep into dusty computer parts? I realized that I've been making excuses for the past 5 years. I mean, yes, Bryce was the starting point for each and every major life altering event these past 5 years now. He got me kicked me out of school, good intention or not, that doesn't matter anymore.

"He stole Jill _after_ getting me kicked out and then out of no where he dumps a national top secret database into my head. You know, I almost forgave him for it all too, when I thought I felt sorry for him. But now, you know, screw him. Screw that ass-hat Bryce. Oh I can imagine you're thinking, but he's put himself in danger to go against Fulcrum to save poor old gullible and naïve Chuck. Well, damn straight he is. But he's not saving me, he's saving the Intersect. I'm just a job to him, like I'm just a job to you." Chuck sighed, his eyes still hidden. He didn't see the utterly shocked expressions on both his handler's faces. He didn't notice the lines of anguish and moist eyes that seemed to have captured Sarah's features.

"Anyway, while I can blame him for the triggers that caused my life to spiral down, I have no one to blame but myself for perpetuating it. Instead of putting my boots back on and finding a new horse to get back on, I've allowed myself to wallow in mediocrity. I didn't have to mope over the loss of Jill and I'm not going to mope over Sar…" Chuck stopped himself. He was putting himself out again, letting everything hang but that particular train of thought was something that they didn't need to know.

"So after horribly failing that last mission and with the head honcho's threats, I decided I needed to get my act together. Take responsibility for my actions, pin responsibilities for actions that other people have made against me. I wasn't ready to go into some underground holding facility then and I'm not ready to go now. If either of you decide to leave for a reassignment in the future for one reason… or another, then I guess I can be fine with that. But now, I have to do everything in my ability to make sure that my performance isn't the cause of it."

"Chuck…" Sarah whispered, her face visibly weakening as he kept talking. Casey spared her a glance, his face unreadable.

"You know Sarah, after watching you with Bryce fighting and working together I was so amazed. It's like you both had worked as a team forever. Your _talents_ are wasted here," Chuck whispered, his voice hitching at the last sentence.

Casey's eyes widened slightly, as did Sarah's. Something changed, something about the Chuck they knew was gone, but they couldn't put their finger on it.

"Getting on with it, I decided that there's only one way I could help the team, help make myself worthwhile. I mean, I have no training; I'm not an experienced, hardened, cold, and manipulative agent." Sarah visibly flinched at the comments.

"All I've got is this damned Intersect, so I made a decision that I needed to make it work for me as much as I was being made to work for the government. So, I snuck into the home theater room on after long day and using the key commands that I've remembered Casey do oh so many times," Chuck actually grinned, "I got in contact with the directors. It took some convincing mind you and they were going to call you two up immediately, but I told them that I've been the one to make the mistakes so I was the one that needed to fix it.

"I got them to tell me the name of the pattern mapping algorithm that was used in the Intersect. I flashed on the name, but it was more than just a flash. It was like the algorithm booted up in my mind and for the next few hours it did a brute force query through all the data in my mind.

"The next two days I spent in the cage I've been going over our previous missions one-by-one and documenting all the new pieces of information I was flashing on. It wasn't until I started going through the Bryce and Fulcrum missions did I start getting data inputs about the shipment parts which triggered onto the MLR2G. Now, the algorithm that the Intersect is using is producing so much information that sometimes a good bunch of it isn't really related. I have to do a lot of sifting through to find the relevant versus the junk. And that's about it really." Chuck finally said; he felt drained down to his core.

The two agents were speechless. Sarah tried her utmost to compose herself, "Why didn't you come to us? We're here to protect you."

Chuck slowly got up into a seated position on the bed, his eyes open but dull. He looked around before moving his legs off the edge of the bed.

"You _are_ here to protect me, protect the Intersect. What I did, I had to do for myself. I needed information on how to go about it. You two are just here to protect the physical vessel of the Intersect and I trust you to do that."

Chuck looked at the IV in his arm and slowly pulled it out, giving off a hiss of pain as he did so.

"Chuck!" Sarah shouted, about to stop him but her body stopped. The eyes that he focused on her were ones she had never seen before. There was some righteous determination and fire in them, anger boiling beneath the surface. Chuck tied the end of the tube, preventing it from dripping and ruining Sarah's carpet.

He got up on wobbly legs and headed to her large windows, "I trust you to protect me and the Intersect from harm and for that I'm grateful, but I don't trust you to do what's best for me as Chuck Bartowski."

"What the hell are you getting at?" Casey snarled.

"Who the hell is Charles Bartowski to you?" Chuck shouted back as he looked at his handlers, his eyes wild, "Just some freaky geeky nerd that you're forced to protect because he has all your secrets shoved into his brain? Or is he some guy in a rut that has an absolutely amazing sister that's loved and supported him his whole life, who's been one of his most needed threads to sanity? Is he some gamer that plays way too many games with his equally socially inept best friend that also happens to be his other thread to remain grounded?

"I don't even know who I am anymore!" Chuck's eyes misted over but he wouldn't break in front of these two. He needed them to understand, not to pretend pity him. Chuck bit the inside of his cheek to focus on the new pain. He hated how he sounded, it was so emo.

"I lie hour after hour. I can't talk to my sister or best friend anymore because I can't tell them anything or risk their safety. I can't talk to you two because it's all about the job. I was drowning in a mess that that bastard Bryce put me into. I was drowning because my emotions, which I've always lived by, were failing me again and affecting my second job." Chuck looked directly at Sarah. She averted his gaze, not able to look at him directly.

"So excuse me for wanting to take some control." Chuck sighed, "And as far as I can see, it's paid off so far."

"Paid off? Look at you Chuck." Sarah shouted back, rising from the bed.

"Look at what? My migraines? My bodily weaknesses? So? I'm not a super undercover agent like you and Bryce, fit enough to fight ninjas, run for miles, seduce anyone you wanted. I'm not like mister I like to hurt people over here. All I have is this," Chuck tapped harshly at his skull, "All I can offer is this."

"But migraines, bloody noses, you're wearing yourself out, look what it's doing to you." Sarah was beginning to plead.

"It's for the greater good isn't it? Isn't that what you agents say? Give your mind, body, and soul to the devil for the greater good?"

"But you're not an agent Chuck."

"Didn't I just say that?" Chuck let out small hysterical laugh, he couldn't help himself. This release, it felt like freedom in some parts. At least he wasn't lying to Casey and Sarah now, or hiding anything from them. Tick one thing off of his conscience.

"I'm living on borrowed time right now. This thing, with everything after me, is like a cancer just eating me away. I'll either be carted away or killed soon. I'd rather do something that will make us succeed, do the best I can at it and not come home at the end of the day and keep blaming Bryce or the CIA or the NSA or anyone." Chuck slumped into a chair, "Because at the end of the day, even though they don't know it, I want to make Ellie and Morgan proud of what I've done, if not who I'm becoming."

Silence filled the room for an awkward half minute. Casey seemed to have a smirk growing on his face.

Chuck looked at his watch; it was just past 1am. "Look, I'm pooped, and I'm heading home."

"Chuck, you need to rest. You should stay here, the doctor said you're dehydrated and malnourished, you need…" Sarah tried to reason.

"Our story had us at the beach today. I'll say I was too exhausted and tired myself out. Ellie's a doctor; she can help me with that. And since our cover as _just_ _friend_s, it'd be weird to explain that I slept over at your place. I don't want to get Ellie's hopes up. It's hard enough as it is." Chuck whispered the last sentence, and looked at Sarah; she looked hurt and so sad. His face melted for a few long seconds before closing itself off.

It's all an act he kept telling himself. Beat that phrase into your head.

It's all an act.


	6. Chapter 6 The Door Swings in the Breeze

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 6: The Door Swings in the Breeze

Chuck stood frozen on the spot, his eyes staring at the sleeping form that was lying on his bed. "Shit."

Too tired to do anything, Chuck climbed through his window and fell down on the other end of the bed, making sure not to wake Morgan up. He had forgotten about game time. Another promise broken with his friend.

"Where's Bartowski?" General Beckman asked. It was two minutes past 7 am and Casey and Sarah were standing in Casey's apartment facing the LCD screen that showed their two senior officers.

Casey and Sarah looked at each other, a slow realization appearing on their faces.

"Crap. Sorry, General. We had some heated discussions last night and forgot to tell the Intersect what time he was supposed to arrive for this briefing." Casey responded, his face showed that he was ready for any repercussions.

"I can go get him." Sarah volunteered, already turning to go towards the door.

"No need," Director Graham interjected, "There's been a change of plans today for you two."

The two agents snapped to attention.

General Beckman asked, "I take it from your reference to last night that Chuck told you about what he's been doing?"

The agents nodded in response, Sarah went into further detail, "He told us the reason for why he did what he did as well as what he asked for and its effect on him. He didn't give any particulars about the actual algorithm that he had said you told him about."

Director Graham leaned against the table next to him, "The algorithm that Bartowski asked about is codenamed _Zebra Junction 3_. The designer and developer is a CIA computer scientist and engineer by the name of Dr. Victor Stone, graduated from MIT with top honors and specializes in data mining algorithms based on pattern recognition. This algorithm was used in the Intersect machine and its sole responsibility was to provide the pattern and relationship mapping between data points stored in the Intersect.

"Even on Bartowski's off days, his flashes were more accurate than what the machine Intersect was ever able to produce. In effect, our Intersect machine was a glorified database with a poor search mechanism. Now, with this algorithm being used by the Intersect that's in Bartowski's brain, his pattern and relationship mapping far exceeds our wildest dreams."

"Would this doctor know the reasons behind Chuck's migraines and his bloody nose?" Sarah wondered.

"Most likely not," Director Graham continued, "He's a technical computer scientist, not a physician. The algorithm was designed for computers so I don't think there's anyone except maybe Bartowski himself that can understand what's happening, assuming he even knows what's going on in his own head.

"Now this algorithm is far from perfect. Bartowski says that it generates anywhere from 6 to 8 times the amount of information or intelligence from before the algorithm was seated into this mind. This means he has to do real time data manipulation and filtering to ensure that only pertinent information is immediately used.

"The rest of the unrelated information he's been documenting and providing us with that information separately."

"Even with this draw back, it was this new algorithm that allowed the Intersect in Bartowski to form a pattern based on information that would otherwise seem completely unrelated. That's how he was able to identify and create a relationship of the shipping manifests as well as the weapon that the items are meant to develop." General Beckman added.

Director Graham continued, "The list of shipping manifests that Bartowski provided numbered up to 25. 24 of these shipments have already landed, with one being the package that we secured. That leaves 23 that have past our envelope. We've raided 21 locations and they've all come up empty handed. The locations were either fronts that had never received any such shipments or were completely false addresses. We still have 2 real locations left to hit."

"We want you two to lead the raids for that today." General Beckman added, "This is a straight forward search and seizure, assuming there's anything there to seize."

Beckman loaded up two schematics for the buildings, "You'll be meeting up with a different set of NSA and CIA task force for these raids. I'm sending you the address for the staging area."

Graham leaned in over Beckman's shoulder, "This is a purely tactical operation. We'll be leaving the Intersect out of this for his safety. Gather whatever intell you can find and we'll have him look it over to see if he flashes later."

"You're to meet with your team at the staging location in one hour." General Beckman looked at the both of them, giving them a few seconds to see if either had any questions. "Dismissed."

When the screen went blank Casey's face lit up as if he won the lottery. "Two raids in two days, man, this is more like it." He began pulling his flak jacket and weapon case out, lovingly caressing it.

Sarah couldn't help her grin as she walked out the door, heading back to her apartment to grab her equipment. She hesitated at Chuck's window, her grin fading while looking longingly at it. Giving a sigh as her shoulders slumped she hurried back to her car, they didn't have much time to waste.

The first things that Chuck noticed as he awoke were the sounds of giggles, the sounds of something clicking, and a very fuzzy feeling on the side of his face.

"Mmm, Anna baby..." a male voice whispered softly next to his ear.

Chuck's eye lids snapped open, his eyes staring into the puckering lips of Morgan.

"MORGAN!" Chuck screamed as he shoved his best friend away, while at the same time trying to back pedal as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Chuck, he was sleeping on the edge of the bed and ended up falling off, his limbs all splayed about awkwardly.

Morgan, after being shoved, opened his eyes, seeing Ellie's long brown hair. Morgan smiled, trying to give her his sexiest smile, "Finally coming to me eh Ellie? Niiice."

He looked to Ellie's side and saw Captain Awesome and Morgan came fully awake.

"Captain! Look, this isn't what it looks like!" Morgan tried to get onto his feet, but only ended up getting his legs tangled in the bed sheets. He too promptly fell off the end of the bed, a tangled heap of limbs and sheets.

Ellie and Devon, each holding a camera, were laughing uproariously. They were holding onto each other as if they too would collapse.

"Oh. My. God." Ellie was able to get out between her laughs.

"That, was totally Awesome!" Devon added as he straightened himself as much as possible, still having a good laugh.

Chuck's head peaked above his bed as he pulled himself up. Seeing his sister and Devon laugh made him forget all his problems for that moment. "You caught us sis," Chuck exaggerated his sigh, "Morgan, really is my _bestest_ friend."

Chuck gave Morgan a wink, but Morgan only looked at him with a stunned face.

"Dude, noooooo..."

Ten minutes later, after Ellie and Devon left for work, but not before they kept promising to bring back the photos later in the day, Chuck and Morgan were facing the TV as Morgan was playing Gears of War.

"I'm really sorry about not showing up last night man, traffic was bad on the way back from the beach." Chuck said, his insides turning as he belted yet another lie out, "I know we haven't spent much time together and I was looking forward to it."

"No prob buddy, traffic can be murder to you 4 wheelers." Morgan responded, his eyes still facing the TV.

Chuck's attention was pulled from the TV when he heard his window shades rattle. Seeing Casey on the other side of the window he walked over.

"You, stay at home today. Walker and I are busy." Casey whispered.

"Woof." Chuck nodded in response.

Morgan had missed the exchange, his eyes glued to the game in front of him. "Oh dude, Big Mike told me to tell you that he gave you today and tomorrow off. Said something about you putting so much extra work that he doesn't want to pay overtime."

Chuck was visibly surprised, not believing his good luck. "Really? What time are you supposed to go in to work? I can drive you."

"No need bud, I switched with one of the other green shirts. So I gots today off! We can game all day today!" Morgan looked over, his eyes so alive.

Chuck was inwardly taken aback once again by Morgan's dedication, "Thanks man, that is perfect. Let me go take a shower first. I think you drooled all over me."

After his shower, Chuck sat watching Morgan whirl a grenade at a group of underground creatures as he kept playing the game.

"Hey buddy, what would you say if I were to ask for your help on a project I've only kind of started on." Chuck hesitatingly asked.

"What kinda project?"

"I've started to draw up plans to create an online puzzle game."

"You want to create a video game?" Morgan excitedly asked, his control now sitting limp in his lap, the game momentarily forgotten.

"Yeh, just a simple one. Basically it's just a memorization and retrieval game. The idea is that the game records and scores someone on how they perform. As the levels increase in difficulty, the memorization patterns and retrieval processes gets more complicated. So the first stage could be memorizing given words and using them as keys to doors or ways to solve puzzles. As it gets harder they'll be memorizing images and then maybe movies even."

Morgan was just staring at Chuck, his mouth agape. Chuck didn't add that the reason he was building this particular game initially was to see if he could gather data on how his mind remembered different types of information and if there happened to be any correlation as to how a given situation would work better to retrieve that stored information.

"You're really gonna do it?" Morgan finally asked.

Chuck stared at the TV, the game frozen in time, "Ellie was right. I can't stay at the Buy More forever and it's been long enough. It's time I start moving on you know? I figure if we start small and simple and slowly build up, maybe we can promote a few simple games and then create bigger ones. Sell the games to other companies to use. We could eventually start our own company."

"We...?"

"You and me, tackling this together. So, what do you say little buddy?" Chuck had barely enough time to finish the last few words before he was wrapped in a fierce hug.

"Beam me up!"

Late that evening Casey and Sarah were standing in front of Casey's computer, the scowls on General Beckman and Director Graham easily broadcasting the mood of the people in the room.

"Both companies are legitimate and from what we can tell, the shipments never even made it to them. Looks like they were intercepted and routed to where they were really intended to reach." Sarah reported.

"Made us waste a bunch of time." Casey groused.

Director Graham's cell phone rang, "Graham." The director's eyes shot up, "Hold one."

"Stay put agents, we may have new information for you." Graham quickly shot off before the screen went blank.

Both agents looked at each other, Casey's eyebrows quirked. "Well, let's see what tweedle dumb and tweedle dee are up to."

Sarah scowled at him in response as Casey flicked the audio switch, the room now filled with the sounds of video game gun shots and energetic shouts from Chuck and Morgan.

"See, I don't understand this one. How can you bring your top 5 favorite DVDs to a desert island? What are you going to use to watch it? What about electricity?" Chuck could be heard saying as they were still playing the video game.

Casey let out a loud groan as he slumped down onto his chair, his head in his hands shaking. "Please, not this. Anything but this." He whispered.

Sarah had a smile on her face as she looked at her partner.

The two agents sat and listened to Chuck and Morgan chatter away about solar powered appliances and how and what they'd be able to make use of them. An off comment about solar powered refrigerators and how that changed the landscape of what type of sandwich they would bring to the island nearly caused Casey to go ballistic. It wasn't until the conversation switched to non-island related topics did the agents become more interested.

"I swear to you, that hot girl I told you about came back into the store again yesterday. She was all about the Morgan!"

"Uhh, isn't Anna going to kill you?"

"Nah, she knows what being with me means. It's the magic I got, first Carina, then Anna, and now, all these hotties." Casey sat down, his hands coming to his ears in a futile effort to block the offensive words.

"Speaking of hot girls, I noticed you been spending a lot of time again with Sarah lately," Morgan began, tactless being his primary offensive weapon, "You two hooking back up?"

Sarah leaned in toward the speaker slightly, as if to try to make sure she caught any sounds that would come out.

"No, we're not getting back together." Chuck answered, his voice sounded sad.

"How come man, you still like her don't cha?"

A humorless laugh fell through the speakers, making Sarah lean back slightly. "Like her?" Chuck began, "Man, I don't know why I'm going to tell you this."

An audible sigh from Chuck echoed through the room, capturing the interest of both agents.

"I don't just like her man, I'm pretty positively sure I've fallen in love with her."

A choking sound could be heard over the speaker, easily identifying that Morgan had chosen a poor time to take a drink. Sarah's eyes were huge, shiny, her heart beating painfully fast. Casey took a sideways glance at the CIA agent and smirked.

"You love her? That. Is. Bitchin'!" Morgan exclaimed, "So what's the problem? She definitely likes you."

There was a lull in verbal communication as only the sound of the game controllers being pushed mercilessly, one more so than the other, could be heard over the speaker. A weak sigh from Chuck just whispered into the spying ears.

"She doesn't like me bud... I'm just... someone that's still showing her around town."

"What?"

"Look.. it's complicated."

"How?"

Another prolonged silence could be heard, Casey could almost imagine seeing Chuck's face frown in concentration as he was thinking what to say. He looked over to his partner, her knuckles white as her hands were clasped tightly together, her face had gone from shocked surprise to a sorrowful yet expectant look. It seemed she forgot that he was still in the room. It also seemed that Chuck forgot that there were bugs in the room too.

"I... I found out a few weeks ago, that she's in love with someone else." Chuck whispered.

Casey was caught by surprise, as was Sarah.

"WHAT? No way! Did she cheat on you? Is that why you guys broke up?" Morgan's voice became agitated, aggressive.

"Huh? Oh, no, no, no... Well, a couple of weeks ago, her... old boy friend came to town."

"What, from DC?"

"Yeh... from DC. So anyway, I caught her and Br... uhh.. Bruce, yeh, ... kissing pretty... umm.. passionately."

Sarah sucked in a sharp breath, her head shacking back and forth as her mouth kept forming the word "no" over and over again.

"Ah man, I'm so sorry."

"No worries dude, that's my luck you know."

"If she loves him, how come she didn't go back with him to DC? Wait, he went back to DC right?"

"What? Oh... yeh. She told me she stayed because of her work."

"At the Weinerlicious?"

"Weiner... oh yeh! Uhh, she's climbing the ladder there you know!" Chuck could be heard following that statement up with nervous laughter.

"So you still have a chance?"

An immense sigh could be heard from Chuck, "Chance? No, I don't compare in anyway to Bruce."

"Look on the bright side, at least it's not because of Bryce this time eh?" Morgan laughed out.

"...yeh..."

Sarah visibly cringed, she was sitting back in the seat now her face looking at the ceiling in quiet contemplation.

"Hey, I can drop Anna, we can be lone wolf and, hmmm, his other buddy, lone wolf two!"

Chuck chuckled a real small laugh, "No way little buddy. You and Anna are awesome, don't give that up. If you really like her and she really likes you, keep it for all you're worth."

"Yeh." A person could just imagine the smile that lighted Morgan's face.

Sarah's cell phone rang, shocking her out of her train of thought. "Walker." She woodenly responded. After listening for a few seconds she shut the phone down.

"Beckman and Graham have a mission for us." Sarah said, not even looking at Casey.

When the directors came on the screen, Sarah had forced her emotions down and looked like the unflappable professional. Her insides were churning. Her face, while still and emotionless were completely betrayed by the layer of liquid that had begun to pool around her slightly pink eyes.

"Before we get started," General Beckman started, just as the door bell rang.

Sarah looked at Casey, who shook his head slightly, as they both pulled their weapons. As Sarah opened the door, with Casey covering her, her weapon arm fell slack to her side.

"That should be your new partner." Beckman continued, her voice in the distance.

"Bryce..." Sarah whispered.

* * *

A/N: ... so...yeh...


	7. Chapter 7 The Door Slams Shut

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

* * *

Chapter 7 – The Door Slams Shut

Chuck wondered how it could be possible to have such a great day as he had yesterday spending time with Morgan and gaming all day to having one of the worst possible day. Yet here he was with headphones on, stuck in the back of another van, sitting next to an always disgruntled Casey, and listening in as Sarah flirted heavily with Bryce.

He let out another sigh and winced, knowing Casey was staring at him with a menacing glare. It seemed sighing despondently every few minutes was another way to annoy Casey. Nope, this day did not start out the way he had expected.

Early that morning Casey had woken him up, knocking on the Morgan door, and told him that he had 20 minutes to get ready for a debriefing at Casey's apartment. The moment he had opened the door to Casey's apartment he had stopped cold, staring at his old best friend, Bryce Larkin. Some notion of relief passed briefly through him knowing that his former friend was still alive, but that vaporized quickly.

"Bryce." Chuck said between clenched teeth, his old friend giving him a nod but was more focused on going over documents with Sarah.

Chuck watched off handily as he made his way to the Casey's computer screen to wait for the debriefing to start. In his opinion the two were standing awfully close. They both seemed to be in their element, going over whatever document and discussing whatever piece of information seemed important to them. As much as he would have liked to have shown no emotion to betray his feelings, his eyebrows still knit together and a frown that would last the rest of the day started to appear.

"Larkin, could you start the debriefing." Director Graham started the meeting off.

"I've been able to infiltrate a small time organization that deals in corporate espionage that sells to over sees rivaling companies but also to Fulcrum technological agents. I've been under as a hired gun and been providing protective and enforcement services for them. I just found out two days ago that one of the main branches has taken a notice into the information that this organization has been dealing and want to partner up for some immediate work.

"Members of the organization that I've infiltrated are meeting with stand-ins for this main branch this evening at a cocktail party in Las Vegas for a banking financier. I've become a pretty trusted gun with this small group so I'm hoping that they'll include me in the loop with whatever deal gets hashed out tonight at this meeting. The bosses of my group think that the deal that'll be going down is pretty big.

"I've been to a few of these meetings before and the new comers are all screened for wires and bugs. But, the guys hosting, are never checked. So our goal tonight is for me to go in clean and have Sarah plant a bug on one of the hosts. Sarah's cover for tonight is just as some girl that I picked up, nothing elaborate and it won't seem odd if she starts to flirt with other guys."

"What happens when later on down the road this guy finds this bug as he's doing his laundry or washing his hair or wherever it is that you plant these bugs?" Chuck asked.

"We're using a long range French transmitter, so when they do find it at least they'll be thrown off our trail." Sarah answered.

Chuck nodded his head in acknowledgment. He had watched Bryce on and off as he talked, his eyes automatically shifting from Bryce to Sarah before he even knew he had. And while his eyes were animated in its movement, Chuck's face was impassive and unfriendly.

It was a face that Chuck almost never wore. If he had noticed anyone's else's face he would have realized that they all felt slightly taken aback by Chuck's facial expression. Even though Sarah and Casey were privy to Chuck's outburst two night's ago, it was still a shock to see the usual happy go lucky Chuck have such an openly hostile look.

"You have any names." Chuck's short reply was not lost either to the participants in the room. They watched him as he walked over to Casey's computer and opened up a notepad document.

"I don't have any of the actual names of anyone that we're meeting their stand-ins for but I do have a nickname for one person, _Speed Jack_." Bryce responded, his face curious.

Chuck's flash was painful, the nickname seemed to be linked to so many data points. He had to close his eyes as he staggered back some, a painful grunt escaping his lips. His hands were already typing.

The amount of information that passed through into his consciousness was staggering. As he was in his own world filtering through information, the other people in the room began to become concerned. Aside from General Beckman and Director Casey, none of them had yet to see Chuck flash with the new algorithm. Sarah had begun to move towards Chuck to try and support him after she saw him stagger.

"What the hell is going on?" Bryce began, "I don't remember him flashing like this."

As Casey filled him in quickly about Chuck getting access to the algorithm, Sarah had moved to put a hand on his arm. Chuck's eyes were open now but he was concentrating on something as if it was right in front of him, his pupils bouncing back and forth quickly.

"Chuck, are your flashes like this now?" Sarah asked him, the question alerting the other people in the room.

"No." Chuck bit out, as he kept typing, his voice as hostile as his face was before.

Almost two full minutes passed before Chuck's eyes began to focus on his surroundings again, his flash subsiding.

Chuck gave his full attention to the two people on the screen as he sent them the file he had just typed up. "We've got a big problem."

"Go ahead." General Beckman responded, concerned.

"As far as our mission tonight it won't be a problem finding someone to put the bug on. Speed Jack's right hand man is an active Delta Force member that is heavily decorated, Colonel Richard Westing."

General Beckman brought Westing's military profile onto the screen the moment Chuck said his name. Listed at 6'3", weighing 270 lbs, he had short combed dirty blond hair and brown eyes. There was an easily visible knife scar running from the corner of his left lip to his left ear. He didn't seem a pleasant man, at all.

"That's Sarah's target tonight."

"What of the problem?" Director Graham asked.

"Speed Jack is the third in command of Fulcrum's international espionage ring. He sells military, corporate, personal, any and all secrets he can get his hands on. He reports to a person codename _Obelisk_. There's very little to no information on Obelisk in the Intersect at the moment." Chuck paused, waiting to see if there was any reaction.

"And?" General Beckman asked, getting irritated with being made to wait.

"The problem," Chuck took a pause as he looked viciously into the eyes of General Beckman, "is that Speed Jack _is_ the current acting supervisor for the Western Division of NSA's European Strategic Command."

General Beckman's eyes widened to impossible sizes, her mouth falling open, as she slumped into her chair. "Trick..."

Director Graham's face was hard as he stared at the General.

"Speed Jack _is _General Patrick O'Hare Junior, his direct NSA supervisor, is General Beckman."

Silence reigned the room, both rooms.

Devon would have been proud of the chaos that ensued a split second after the initial silence. It was, awesome. Yelling, threats, accusations, and demands all flew out of mouths. Chuck took a seat and waited, his job was done. He was nursing a slight headache from the flash and didn't mind the respite.

An hour later the two directors and the spies had to come to a course of action. Considering that Speed Jack was currently NSA it would be a bad choice to have the Intersect and Casey anywhere in the room. That left them monitoring that evening in a parked van while Bryce, known as Brian Taggert, along with his arm candy Sarah, who's cover was Amy Little, made their way around the room.

So here Chuck sat, in the van once again, listening into a pair of headphones waiting for Bryce to be sent into the VIP room for the meeting.

"Have I told you how ravishing you look Amy?" Bryce's voice came through the bug that Sarah was wearing.

"All night," Sarah began, "but a girl doesn't mind hearing it more often." The sound of a soft kiss could be heard.

"You taste good, as always." Bryce responded.

Casey watched as Chuck's hand was turning purple. He had nervously or unconsciously wrapped the headphone's wires around his left hand and as the night progressed the wire was getting tighter and tighter.

"I see Westing." Sarah's whisper entered his ear, "Intercepting."

Chuck and Casey waited in the van for a few seconds, listening to the environmental sounds as Sarah made her way through the crowd. Then suddenly another feed came through the line.

"Package delivered." Sarah whispered. It appeared she was making her way back to Bryce as his voice began to filter in through the line again.

"West is heading to the VIP room." Sarah whispered.

"Heads up, my boss is coming." Bryce's faint voice came through.

"Brian! Come here, we got a meeting to attend." A voice could be heard a distance away.

"What do you know about these guys?" A gruff voice sounded from the second bug.

"Small timers in this game, but they're consistent and reliable. They haven't had any failures yet Colonel." A smooth voice with an English accent answered.

"How big are they?"

"Twenty large, most of them are muscle. Only three brains."

"Backgrounds?"

"Most are guns for hire, a few soldiers of fortune."

"Tag the ex-mils and bait the guns."

"That'll drop them down to about eight total once the guns are baited."

"That's fine. We got no permanent use for guns."

Chuck looked over at Casey with a questioning look, "Bait?"

Casey scowled at him before answering, "Westing is willing to keep ex-military personnel on board but all the guns for hire or thugs are going to be used for jobs where they're expected to be killed."

"Mr. Holdings." The voice of Bryce's boss could be heard.

Casey looked at Chuck to see if he flashed, Chuck shook his head. "Probably a fake name then."

"Mr. Jennings, pleasure." Holdings responded, the smooth voice that was heard talking with Westing.

"I'd like to introduce you to my best guys. Vincent Cordale, my second, William Jennings, my brother and our financial expert, and Brian Taggert, he organizes our men."

"Excellent, I'd like to introduce you to Colonel Westing, he'll be standing in for Speed Jack."

"You been in the military before Taggert?" Westings voice could be heard.

"Yes Colonel. Sergeant with the Marine Core Force Recon." Bryce responded.

"Good man." Westing answered.

"Gentlemen," Holdings started, "We've brought you here today because it seems that we could make use of your organization's skills and talents. In trade we'll be paying you quite handsomely for your services.

"Now let me make this clear, our work requires us to deal in the utmost security and privacy. Do you have any issues with this?"

"No sir," Jennings responded, "We keep no records of clients and observe the highest level of respect and security. We haven't had a failed project yet."

"We have a strategic opportunity in the near future that we could use some of your help with. But before we trust you with one of our biggest projects to date, we need to find out if we'd form a good working relationship. Don't you agree?" Westing demanded.

"Completely Colonel." Jennings responded.

"Good," Holdings said, "We'll be in contact later tonight to discuss our first project. If all goes well, we'll be working together quite often in the future."

There was the sound of rustling and shifting as it seemed that Bryce's group left the VIP room.

"What do you think Colonel?" Holdings queried.

"They seem like any other group, willing to do anything if they get paid for it. What do you have them working on Kendel?"

Chuck's head swam with data as the flash happened, Casey immediately recognized it.

"I'll set them up for Project Duck Hunt." Kendel, who had initially been known as Holdings replied.

"Really? Isn't that a bit too close to the heart?" Westing asked, his voice held some unease.

"Normally I would agree, but if they could gain access to some of the information we need from Korea, France, and Iran it'll make it easier to assimilate them. And all signs point to them being able to get that information."

Casey's cell phone rang as he ripped it open to answer it. Chuck concentrated on the discussion and kept documenting his findings. A few minutes later Casey closed the phone he turned back to Chuck.

"Walker and Larkin left the party along with Jennings and his group. I told them that we're staying to monitor and debriefed them on what we've heard so far. They're done with their part. We'll meet up with them at the hotel later tonight if we get back in time."

Chuck didn't acknowledge the statement as he concentrated on listening to the conversation.

"What's the ETA on the _turtle_?" Westings asked, as Chuck and Casey looked at each other in confusion.

"Four months out at the moment. We have bigger issues." Kendel said, his voice getting harder.

"I've brought a new person on board, not sure about his trust worthiness but he's got the information we need." The sound of clinking ice could be heard as Westings took a drink.

The sound of paper hitting a table top was heard, "This is the information the new guy provided."

"How in the world is this possible?"

"I don't know but I think we need to grab _Excalibur_."

"Agreed." Kendel stated, "And you're sure Beckman doesn't suspect you?"

"She's got her attention so wrapped up with the loss of the Intersect that's she just a useless cow at the moment."

Casey started coughing as Chuck let out a little chuckle.

Chuck and Casey listened for another thirty minutes, documenting names and phrases that they had heard but Chuck didn't flash on. As they were shutting down their equipment Casey asked about the flash on Kendel.

"Johnathan Kendel is ex-Mi6. Discharged for attempting to sell missile schematics to North Korea. He's been one of the biggest information brokers in the black market for the past 4 years."

As they were walking to their hotel rooms, Chuck came to an immediate stop as he rounded the corner. Casey walked right into him but it didn't seem to phase Chuck one bit. Casey looked down the hallway to where Chuck was staring and saw Sarah and Bryce locked in a passionate embrace as they fumbled their way into her hotel room.

After the click of the door sounded through the otherwise quiet hallway, a harsh whimper came out of Chuck's mouth. A few seconds passed and then Casey couldn't help himself as he placed a hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Let's go down to the bar, grab a few."

That seemed to shake Chuck's stupor. Chuck looked at Casey, his eyes full of pained emotion, but slowly, as if Casey was watching a flower whither and die, Chuck's eyes became devoid of any emotion.

"Thanks, but, I think I'm going to go for a little walk outside." Chuck responded in a dull lifeless voice.

Early the next morning, Chuck had swapped seats with Casey, sitting alone in the far back of the plane. He had walked all night and didn't catch even an hours sleep. His whole being was in turmoil. It had been easy to think, to assume based on strong evidence that Sarah didn't love him and was still in love with Bryce. He had not been prepared for the emotional and physical repercussions of seeing that realization last night.

Chuck grabbed at the blanket that he had wrapped tightly around himself and turned slightly towards the window. This morning as they had gone to the airport, both he and Casey had noted the utter glow that seemed to exude from Sarah. She looked so alive and happy. Bryce was already gone, going back undercover.

His job was done.

Chuck was snapped out of his stupor when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Looking over he saw Sarah smiling brightly at him.

"Casey said you weren't feeling well, are you OK?" She asked softly as she rubbed circles on his arm.

Chuck raged inside, his heart screaming out. How dare she? How dare she act so close? He hated her at that moment, even though he so ached for her. At that precise moment, he loathed her. Despised her acting the part of the caring friend. Hated the lies that she started. Hated the lies that she had made him tell.

Why hadn't she just left with Bryce?

As much as the physical pain he felt from his heart, that felt like it was stung so deeply that it wanted to lash out, Chuck couldn't do it. He couldn't lash out at her. She couldn't help it that what she wanted was the dark super spy. With the will and effort tantamount to moving the Earth, Chuck physically turned his whole body away towards the window shrugging her hand off in the process.

"Just a bad headache and some sinus stuff." Came his low and lifeless response.

He missed the slightly pained expression that flitted her exuberant face. It didn't deter her as Sarah's smile erupted again, her hand finding itself on his back, soothingly stroking it. To Chuck, each one of her touches made his body colder, physically shivering from the chills.

"I wanted to say how great a job you've been doing," Sarah almost shyly said in a sing song voice, "Everyone's been impressed and I must say that I'm really proud of you."

Chuck only slightly nodded his head in response.

"Bryce's boss called him late last night. They were contacted by Holdings/Kendel and are off on their trial mission. We've sent the data you documented to Beckman and Graham as well this morning... Bryce wanted me to thank you."

Chuck grunted.

"Once we land, we'll be heading directly to the staging area to finish plans and preparation for intercepting the package arriving today. Just do what you did last time and things will go perfectly."

Another small nod.

"Is something wrong Chuck?" Sarah concernedly asked, her hand now fully palmed onto his back as she leaned in. Her other hand landed on his forearm, squeezing it gently.

Chuck didn't respond, he couldn't. He was busy hiding, walling himself in.

* * *

A/N: This was the hardest chapter I've had to write and only because of the last few paragraphs.

As a fan of Chuck, I'm not a fan of Bryce, at all. But, I do admit that Bryce is an amazing plot device. With his presence alone, turmoil and turbulence follows.

At least the hardest chapter is over with. All the players are in place and the background information laid out, so now the adventure really begins and answers start coming.


	8. Chapter 8 The Door Crumbles

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 8 – The Door Crumbles

They had expected heavier resistance than the raid on the first cargo ship, they never expected a small army waiting for them. They had immediately lost two of the Coast Guard officers as they were walking up the ramp and then all hell broke loose as hostiles popped up from railings and windows.

The radio was crackling with gunfire volleys exchanged between groups, voices from the teams were calling in hostile contact from all directions. The NSA and CIA snipers were having a field day, calling in downed tangos one after another as they were picking free moving and partially hidden targets.

The two patrolling helicopters were letting loose with their on-board gunner providing the ground team cover for movement as well as picking off some of the enemy combatants.

Chuck felt useless, all the video feeds were too far from any actual hostile for him to see anything and trigger any flashes. He looked over at Agents Woods and Kramer. They were in their element, calling out commands and locations, telling the team members to switch targets to either supply cover or to focus fire on a specific target. And though Chuck felt useless, he watched them, in awe.

This was what staying in the car meant for these two. Providing strategic and tactical information as well as decisions to ensure the safety and success of their team. This was what he needed to strive for. Chuck made a mental note and added it to his list, _never be just a body in the car_.

The team took a full twenty minutes just to fight their way to board the ship and once they boarded Chuck's duty picked up. The data that flowed in front of him was a hurricane of information as he flashed on bodies that littered the deck and hallways.

Calling out demolition experts and their signature styles and naming fallen enemies and possible partners were Chuck's primary tasks. His eyes soon felt raw, the headache he developed thirty minutes after the ground teams had boarded was slamming at the back of his skull. He assumed he was lucky enough this time that he hadn't started to get a nose bleed, yet.

The final all clear was given an hour and fifteen minutes after initial boarding.

"Bring a perimeter up, Rifles keep eyes open for incoming. Let's get the schematics and locate the package." Agent Kramer's tired voice sounded into his mic, "Great job people."

Chuck cradled his head in his hands, everything from his neck up hurt something fierce.

"Why don't you grab the seat at the front Carmichael, take a nap." Agent Woods sympathetically said.

"Thanks. Wake me for the ID yeah?" Chuck stated as he unbuckled himself from his seat and went to the front passenger seat and reclining it.

It hadn't been more than an hour when Chuck felt a tap on his shoulder.

"We're at the package's container, ready for ID." Agent Kramer said as he went back to his seat.

Chuck looked at his watch, "That was quick."

The other agent nodded, "The container was near the top this time, lucky us."

Chuck watched as Sarah and another agent threw open the container doors and about a dozen flash lights shown into the recess of the container, illuminating the second pulse generator.

"Can you ID?" Sarah asked over the line.

"Package confirmed." Chuck said as he walked back to the front seat and fell back asleep.

At the shipping container, Sarah relaxed, she was soaked through in sweat. She looked over at Casey as the man's eyes glowed with excitement. She looked around the rest of the team that was set in place, a few of them strategically placed for perimeter security. She spotted two of the assault members that had bandages on their arms or legs. They had taken bullets during the battle and now that it was secure with the package identified she could hear agent Woods calling in an ambulance.

"4-3, we need to get a clean up team here." Sarah triggered her mic and spoke.

"Affirmative 4-3, they are en route." Agent Kramer responded.

Sarah started to walk towards Casey to begin orchestrating the removal and secure passage of the package on the 18 wheeler waiting in stand-by. The first thing she registered was a large cracking sound as one of the agents in her peripheral vision jolted back and fell onto the ground.

"Sniper! Sniper! Sniper!" Echoed through her ear piece as she dove behind the container for cover.

"2-2 is down! 2-2 is down!" Someone's voice echoed in her ear.

"Rifles do you have eyes?" Agent Woods demanded through the communications line.

Three more shots were heard echoing around the area.

"Sniper is behind B3, 10th floor from top, 4th window from West side of building."

From her position Sarah couldn't see the sniper and only got the eastern edge of the building. She watched as the two helicopters roared above her to get into position. She was about to move forward from her position when another three shots sounded out.

"3-1, I'm hit." An anguished voice sounded out in her ear.

"Sniper! Sniper! Sniper! We have a second sniper!"

A cacophony of single shots were heard from the snipers as well as the assault teams and the NSA and CIA snipers that fired back returning shots.

"Rifle 7, sniper 1 down."

Sarah stayed low and moved forward, sweat poured down her face as she scanned the buildings looking for the second sniper. Her ear pierce was belting out shouts from her team as they were looking for the second sniper. She heard one of the agents breaking up over the communications line as she rounded the edge of a wall and spotted a muzzle flash from a window in the building behind B3.

"4-3, Sniper 2 is in building behind B3, 4 floors from top, 10 windows from West side." Sarah called through her mic as she got behind a set of metal containers.

Getting down on one knee, she brought her MP5 up and sighted down the barrel to where she saw the flash. Sarah let loose 3 quick bursts but her shots were low and wide, the grouping spread out. The distance was too far for an MP5 to provide accurate shots. Her peripheral vision noticed scattering of her team members adjusting their position to gain better access to the window.

Sarah saw the area around the window literally disintegrate as a hail storm of bullets from various sources rained in, her index finger pulling down on the trigger repeatedly as she intended to empty the clip.

"Rifle 6, sniper 2 down." Rang out through the communications line.

The smattering of gunfire stopped immediately as they waited for the all clear signal.

Sarah listened to the static that filled the line, the agent that seemed to be breaking up through the line still yelling brokenly. She glanced up and spotted Casey, her hand pointing to her ear. Casey just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

Then in a moment her face drained of color as her world turned upside down.

"...arhmi..el ..s...own... "

"rep.at...car..chael... is...dow..."

Her legs were carrying her with another boost of adrenaline, her body's fatigue forgotten. Sarah's field of vision became clearer and focused as it narrowed down the path that would take her to where mobile command was hidden.

If she had not been so focused she would have noticed Casey hurdling a group of steel barrels as he tore down the alley way to get to the same location. Her breath came out in short angry bursts of air, reminiscent of a race horse coming down the last stretch.

The whispered words of, "This can't be happening", echoing in her mind. Rounding the last corner her face spoke it all. Like she had just been told that someone she cared about had died, her eyes opened wide as she whispered, "no.."

As Sarah got closer she saw a grouping of three bullets neatly placed in the left side of the front windshield, the cracks in the glass spidering out. The passenger door was open as the profile of one of the agents could be seen halfway through. The agent's upper torso was moving up and down.

Sarah started to hear agent Kramer's voice as she came to a halt at the van's open side door, "No pulse still."

Agent Woods saw her as he was giving Chuck CPR, "Medi-vac, ETA 5 minutes."

"Got a pulse!" Kramer exclaimed, as Chuck gave a little gasp of breath, a few droplets of blood spluttered out.

"At a boy Carmichael." Woods sat back. Both agents were covered in blood, Chuck's whole shirt was stained a deep red, "Just hang on buddy."

"What... what happened?" Sarah asked breathlessly, Casey just arriving by her side, his eyes wide once he saw Chuck. Agent Kramer was still holding onto the makeshift bandages as he was applying pressure to the bullet wounds, trying to keep too much blood from flowing out.

"He was napping in the front seat when the snipers started firing. He woke up and was making his way back to the van when he was hit three times."

Sarah had worked her way into the van, kneeling with his head between her legs.

"Chuck?" Sarah's hoarse whisper sounded in the van, tears coursing down her cheeks, her hand smoothing his hair gently.

Chuck's eyes were drowsy, shifting around and not focusing on anything. A trickle of blood ran down the edge of his mouth as he coughed up another bubble of blood.

The rest of the ground team arrived on site, not sure if there had been another group of hostiles that had taken down their hidden mobile command center. Agent Woods intercepted them and ordered 5 of them to form a perimeter around the vehicle while the rest went back to secure the pulse power generator to the 18 wheeler and get it ready for transport.

Casey was on the phone to General Beckman, "General, we've got a situation."

..

"No, we've secured the package, but Carmichael is critically wounded. Three shots to the torso."

...

"Snipers ma'am, towards the end of the mission."

...

"No ma'am, he followed orders and stayed in the car. Some how mobile command was compromised."

...

"Medi-vac is in-coming."

...

"Yes General."

Casey slammed the phone shut, his eyes fixed on Chuck. Blinking his eyes, Casey narrowed them immediately as he stepped back surveying the area.

"Chuck..." Sarah was bent over, her face about two feet away from his. Her gear hindering her from closing the distance any. "You gotta stay with me OK?"

Chuck's eyes somehow focused on her even through the haze of pain, "Sa...rh?" came the weak whisper.

Sarah gave him a little laugh and bright smile, "Yeh, I'm here Chuck."

"S'..kay." Chuck whispered, coughing more droplets of blood. "You...can...go."

"Chuck?" Sarah asked perplexed? "I'm not leaving you Chuck, I'm nev..."

"to...Bry..ce." he finished.

Sarah's face crumbled a little, fresh tears falling, "No Chuck. I'm staying here with you. I..."

She was interrupted as Agent Kramer's face popped into the van, "Chopper just landed, we need to move him."

Sarah nodded her head before looking back down at Chuck, "You're gonna be OK. Everything's going to work out."

She got out of the van as she watched the EMT's stabilize him before putting him on the gurney. Following closely behind them, jumped into the chopper the moment Chuck was loaded up, not even throwing another glance behind her.

An hour later Casey walked into the waiting room, and found Sarah sitting hunched over in a chair, her hands shaking violently as her right leg was bouncing nervously. She was still fully geared.

"Any word?" Casey asked as he sat down next to her. He had removed most of his gear, now only in his TDU's and armed with just his sidearm and the ammo clips for it.

"No," Sarah's hoarse voice whispered. She brought her head up slightly and wiped her eyes forcefully with the back of her right hand. "They went in an hour ago and not a word since."

Sarah was suddenly up, pacing the waiting room frantically. "He stayed in the car Casey, he did what we asked him to. He stayed in the car! This shouldn't be happening."

"What the hell went wrong Casey?" Sarah was hyperventilating, her nervous worried energy now turned to anger.

"Calm down Walker." Casey calmly stated.

"Calm down? Chuck died Casey, he died!" Sarah stopped, her wild eyes looking deep into his.

"He was dead Casey." She whispered, her eyes tearing up again as she leaned against the wall, sliding down till she sat on the floor.

"So he was dead, Kramer and Woods got him back..." Casey began.

"You don't understand, he was dead." Sarah whimpered, "I... I felt destroyed."

Sarah was surprised when she found herself lifted up. Casey looked furious, his hands gripping her body armor and hauling her up and pinned her against the wall.

"What the fuck are you playing at Walker? Bartowski isn't here, you can cut the cover crap." He growled out.

"What.. what are you talking about?" Sarah whispered, still in a state of shock.

"Listen, everyone's caught on that you're still in love with Bryce. Fine. You still need to stay friendly with Bartowski. Fine. But he's not here, no need to put on this emotional show. I'm not in the mood for it."

"Bryce...?" Sarah began blinking, her eyes locking in on Casey's. "Why Bryce?"

Casey rolled his eyes, letting her go as he walked away. "I always suspected you were falling for Bartowski. Didn't think I was wrong about that. But you proved us wrong yesterday."

"What? ... What are you talking about?"

"Bartowski and I saw you and Bryce sucking face as if there was no tomorrow last night, just before you two went into _your_ hotel room." Casey sneered at her.

Sarah collapsed on the ground, her eyes wide. "No...Please no. Chuck, Chuck saw that? Did he stay?"

Disbelief etched all over his face, "What, so that you can have the puppy hear you two go at it?"

"No..." Sarah whimpered in a small wounded voice, "Nothing happened.. nothing happened last night."

"Right...So were we wrong when we saw the busy hands playing grab ass?" Casey was relentless.

"Yes. Yes, I... I was weak," The statement shocked Casey. "Bryce said all the right things, it was familiar... but once we were inside, I knew it was wrong. I... I told Bryce to leave. Nothing happened."

"I don't believe you."

Sarah looked up, her face angry and defiant, "I don't care what you believe Major."

"You better start caring Walker. Because if you can't make me believe how do you think you'll ever convince Chuck?"

Sarah seemed to fold. Casey looked at her, he needed to keep pressing her. She was never going to be this vulnerable, so he needed to work it to his advantage.

"What about that shit eating grin you sported all this morning, that post coital glow?"

Sarah looked at her hands, Chuck's blood still staining them. She was hesitant, "Ever since this assignment started, I've always taken his presence for granted. I've always felt that I had so easily grabbed his attention, that I could always easily grab it again. Just like with any of the men I was assigned to get near.

"I've been confused, with Bryce. We had ended so abruptly, and I kept feeling things for him. We had always been so happy together and those feelings never died. I had thought that there was still something with Bryce and when I found out that he was alive, I thought I was still his girlfriend. But something changed along the way these past few months.

"When I finally understood that Chuck might be giving up on me, on any potential us, something inside hurt so deep I can't even begin to describe it. I realized that he wasn't like any of the men that I was assigned. He wasn't like Bryce. He's Chuck. He gave me space, he let me know his feelings but never forced himself on me. He demanded my honesty and that too is so rare. I had an epiphany. I realized last night, what Chuck _really_ meant to me.

"I realized," Sarah's voice got stronger as she looked up into Casey's smirking face, "that no one, not even Bryce, can ever _compare_ to my Chuck."

Sarah stared directly into Casey's eyes, "I will convince Chuck, and I'll be damned if anyone tries to stand in my way."

Three hours later Sarah and Casey were still in the waiting room, each sitting on the opposite side of the room. Casey had the same smirk smeared across his face since her confession. For once, Sarah didn't mind. She felt a little lighter now. The small smile she was wearing earlier had grown into a worried frown as the time passed.

Casey's cell rang, "Casey."

Sarah got up, "I'm going to check the nurse's station again." Casey nodded his head.

"Is there any word on Agent Carmichael? Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest?" Sarah asked the same nurse that had been at the counter.

"Sorry ma'am, still haven't heard anything." The nurse replied.

Sarah sighed.

"Then call them up and find out what's taking them so long!" Casey ground out between clenched teeth. His sudden appearance startled both ladies.

"I'm sorry but, I can't interrupt..." The nurse stopped talking as she noticed Casey's gun pointing directly in her face.

"Casey!" Sarah nearly shouted, looking around.

"I'm giving you till the count of 3 to call into that operating room." Casey was dead serious, as he pulled the hammer back on his gun.

"1."

The nurse scrambled for the phone and began dialing. She waited for the longest 15 seconds of her life, "No one's picking up."

"What operating room are they in?" Casey demanded, lowering his gun.

"You can't..." Casey raised his gun again.

"3, operating room 3. Down the hall, through the double doors, second door on the left."

Casey began sprinting down the hall, Sarah right behind him.

"Casey! What was that all about?" Sarah shouted at him.

"Beckman called. The package that we picked up today never reached NSA's holding facility and the first package that we had secured has gone missing." Casey shouted back as he slammed through the set of double doors.

"What?" Sarah exclaimed.

"They also found Agent Kramer, shot in the head at close range. Woods is missing." Casey nearly spat out as opened the door to the operating room.

Blood and bandages littered the ground; tools were scattered everywhere. Sarah fell to her knees, an anguished wail escaped her lips.

Other than the two of them, the room was empty.


	9. Chapter 9 We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 9 – We're Not in Kansas Anymore

A curse of frustration could be heard throughout the hallway, just as an instrument tray was thrown out the door. Casey stormed out of the operating room and stood in the hallway, his breath coming in ragged pulls. He had his fists jammed onto his waist, looking every bit a menacing bulldog. A few deep breaths later and he had his phone out and dialed General Beckman's number. As he walked back into the operating room with the phone to his ear, he saw that Sarah had recovered herself. Her phone was in her ear too as she was kneeling on the floor, her gloved hand placed next to a few stains of blood.

"The room's been empty for a while now I think, all the blood splatters have dried up." Sarah said on the phone, looking up as Casey walked in. She mouthed the word, "Graham" as Casey nodded his head in response.

"We'll get right on it." The both said in unison, closing their phones.

"I'm going to check the security tapes and see if anything was recorded." Casey volunteered, his eyes roaming the room.

"I've got forensics coming in here shortly and I'm going to wait them out, see if they can come up with anything. Graham wants us to debrief him and the General when we're done."

Casey nodded his head again, "Meet at my place when you're done here."

He stopped halfway out the door, and looked back at Sarah, "We'll find him."

She looked at him in surprise but a determination slowly set into her face, "I know."

As the door swung shut, Sarah closed her eyes. She took a deep breath of air and held it for a few seconds before slowly exhaling. Her eyes opened, they were clear and focused. She scanned the room with a critical eye, other than the people, she was sure there was something else missing. She slowly walked around the room, trying to determine what it was.

While she refocused on the center of the room it hit her. It wasn't just that the doctors, nurses, and Chuck were missing, but all the equipment minus the operating tools and lights were missing as well. The IV stand that held all the fluids, including replacement blood bags, was missing. The piping that connected into the wall for the anesthesia gas was removed and missing as well.

The tools that were strewn about consisted of scalpels, tweezers, clamps, trays, and blood soaked bandages. Sarah spotted an empty tray on the floor, there were dots of blood inside it. Most likely they had pulled out the bullets and dropped them into this tray during the operation. Looking around she didn't see any signs of the discarded bullets.

The trash was filled with blood soaked bandages and two bags of plasma. Sarah's face noted with worry as she saw the amount of blood that was soaked into the bandages before quickly looking away.

A knock sounded on the door causing Sarah to look up. The forensics team had arrived.

Sarah knocked on Casey's apartment door four hours later. "Find anything?" She asked as she sat down on a chair at the table, her head falling into her hands. Casey walked over to his monitoring equipment and swiveled the screen to allow her a better view.

"Yeh, but let's conference in the bosses first." Casey replied as he activated his computer and linked up to General Beckman and Director Graham. Sarah straightened herself out as the two directors came on screen. They looked more constipated than they usually did.

"Report." Came the terse command from General Beckman.

Casey stood up and primed a video on the monitoring equipment. "This is the surveillance video of the operating room hallway. We can see him being brought directly to operating room 3. There aren't any cameras inside the actual operating room."

Casey jumped ahead in the video, "This is approximately 1 hour after they've brought him in. You see the entire staff come out of the operating room, along with the gurney, and a slew of other equipment."

"Pause that, right there." Sarah said as she jumped up from her seat. "We confirmed at the hospital that whoever took Chuck also took enough equipment to keep him alive."

Sarah pointed to a canister that was attached to the side of the gurney. "That canister looks to be attached to the gas mask. I'm assuming it's for the anesthesia. This particular hospital uses a central gas delivery system where they deliver the required gas to each operating room through a piping system attached to the wall.

"Looks like this group was prepped early and ready for transport."

Casey nodded as he restarted the video, switching the feed to another camera. "That would coincide with this part. This is the docking area feed, a bit odd to be taking a gun shot patient here. Notice the black van that's already waiting and the not so friendly looking guards."

"The image is fuzzy," Sarah began, "but I think there's a few of what looks like gas canisters in that van. You can kind of make it out through the open rear door."

Casey nodded after he took a closer look, his eyes going wide. "They're prepping up for a long run."

"Do we know the name of the staff involved?" Director Graham asked.

Sarah nodded as she brought out a piece of paper, "The surgeon is a Dr. Phil Harris, the two attending nurses are Bob Clark and Linda Smith, and the anesthesiologist is Dr. Kathy Johnson. I did a quick check on them and found that they've had a large infusion of money in the past two days. Approximately five million per person."

Sarah looked back at the two directors, "What happened today?"

General Beckman gave a distasteful look, "Today's package was supposed to arrive with its security detail 45 minutes after it left the pier. They were checking in every 5 minutes to confirm the detail's status. We kept getting check-ins but the package never arrived.

"I sent a scouting party out through the predetermined route. We found Agent Kramer's body at the halfway point. He had a close range gunshot wound to the head. Vehicle tracks led to a dead end. We're assuming they switched to another transport.

"We then contacted the NSA secure facility but didn't get any response. By the time any agents were able to get to the facility the first package was gone and the security detail was eliminated."

"Woods..."Casey growled out the agent's name.

General Beckman could only nod her head, "It looks that way, along with a group of others that we have yet to identify."

"What the hell is going on here? Is the majority of NSA already in Fulcrum?" Sarah demanded.

"You best watch your tongue and mind who you're talking to agent." General Beckman threatened, her body sitting rigid still.

Sarah stood up from her chair, her palms flat on the table, staring directly at General Beckman, "My allegiance isn't to you _General_. I serve the United States government as an agent of deadly intent. I will talk to you as I need to until your allegiance is properly secured.

"As far as I'm concerned, short of Agent Casey, all of NSA is suspect."

General Beckman stood up and practically shouted, "I will not be spoken to..."

"What have you done about General O'Hare Junior since Chuck told you that he was a major leader for Fulcrum?" Sarah shouted above Beckman's voice, swiftly cutting her off.

Beckman's eyes went wide as she sat down heavily. Sarah's eyes narrowed, as did Director Graham's, "That's what I thought."

Sarah looked over at her boss, "We need to bring him into a CIA facility for interrogation."

"No!" Beckman shouted, rising to her feet again. "I will not have General O'Hare brought in to some CIA facility..."

"What? You want to bring him into a NSA facility only to have him walk right back out?" Casey sounded out, shocking General Beckman. His eyes were narrowed, "He needs to be heavily interrogated and then properly dealt with."

"No!" Beckman's voice was rising again, "He needs to be properly approached..."

General Beckman abruptly stopped speaking, her mouth slack as she was staring down the barrel of Director Graham's pistol.

"You have 30 seconds to explain your relationship with this Fulcrum agent." Graham growled out.

General Beckman was speechless, still staring at the CIA Director's weapon. "I've started counting, so unless you want me to repaint your office in NSA grey matter, you better start talking."

Beckman slumped down into her chair, a look of utter defeat on her face. "Patrick and I served during the Gulf War. We were providing intelligence and leadership for our agents. During a trip to one of our meetings, our convoy was ambushed. A few of the agents along with Patrick and I fought our way out of the ambush. I was pretty badly wounded, although I probably would be dead if Trick hadn't taken a bullet for me.

"Even though he was wounded, he carried me over 5 miles to safety."

Graham's gun lowered, just as Sarah spoke, "So, that means I won't automatically beat the life slowly out of him. His fate of a slow death or a quick death will depend on Chuck's condition when we find him." Her voice was heavy with sarcasm, but it was deadly serious as well.

"Agent Walker, I'll have a few agents pick up this mark for questioning. I'll send you information on which location he'll be held at for questioning." Director Graham stated as he holstered his weapon. Casey noted that he didn't take the safety off and he didn't snap close the strap that held his sidearm in its holster.

"I suggest picking up all his immediate family as well." Sarah stated venomously. Beckman's head snapped up. "We'll want all the leverage we can use."

Graham nodded his head as he placed a call.

"This all brings out another problem." Casey began as all the eyes refocused on him, "Why didn't Chuck flash on Woods. He's been able to accurately flash on other Fulcrum agents before."

His question was met with a few seconds of silence before Sarah eyes seemed to light up, "Chuck's Intersect data must be older than Woods' Fulcrum recruitment. Since he hasn't been uploaded with any new data he can't flash on any new agents or new information that's occurred since the Intersect was downloaded into his brain."

"That means that Woods must have switched in these past few months." Graham said as he paced slowly back and forth. He looked at Sarah briefly before continuing, "Did forensics find anything out?"

Sarah shook her head, the lack of leads frustrating her, "None. No particle residue or anything to help us. And the license plates in the videos that Casey reviewed isn't clear enough to make anything out."

"I went back to the alley where mobile command was hidden during this morning's operation." Casey began, "The van was hidden in the shadow of the building, as we had expected it to be. Its location was deep within the alley that it wasn't just sticking out. If you didn't know to look, you wouldn't have seen the van."

Casey brought up a map of the area and to the side of it, a photograph from mobile command's point of view, facing out of the alley.

"The second sniper was located at this window. As you can see, it's a direct line of sight to the van and not a very effective view of the area of actual operation."

"That second sniper was purposely set-up to shoot into the van." Sarah breathed out.

Casey nodded, "And you can bet that Woods was the one to tell Bartowski to take a nap in the front seat, knowing that he would be exhausted."

"And with the rest of us preoccupied with the first sniper on the ground team and thinking afterwards that the second sniper was targeting us as well, it gave plenty of time for Chuck to be seen and shot." A frustrated Sarah said.

Graham nodded his head, "Walker, Casey I'll inform you the moment we have the mark and his family in custody. I want the two of you to take the lead in his interrogation."

Director Graham walked back towards the silent and defeated General Beckman, "Report to us again tomorrow at 2pm your time. Dismissed."

The screen went blank, but not before both agents could see that Director Graham intended to have some private words with General Beckman.

Casey looked over at Sarah, "We better get what rest we can. We'll need all the energy if we're going to break a General."

Sarah nodded, "That's what his family will be there for. Potential collateral damage."

Five hours later and 400 some miles north of LA, three black vans slowly drove onto the back roads of a wine vineyard. The moon light helped in illuminating the dirt path as the caravan drove right into a large winery. One by one each van drove onto a platform that lowered itself down, seemingly right into the earth.

As the first van's doors opened to reveal approximately four surgical staffers and a still unconscious Chuck, they were approached by Colonel Richard Westing.

"How's the package?" Westing asked as he walked over to the gurney.

"Stable, but he's going to be in and out for at least another two days. After that, he'll need bed rest for another two weeks to ensure a full recovery." Dr. Harris hesitantly responded.

"I need him up and able to answer some questions in one day." Westing commanded as he stared at the Doctor.

"He can't be pushed!" Dr. Harris exclaimed, "He's not critical anymore but he's still very weak."

"If you don't have him ready to speak in two days, _you _will be disposed." Westing stated loudly as he walked out of the room.

Dr. Harris looked at his surgical staff, all their eyes bulging out, fear written all over their faces. He looked down at his patient on the gurney, the man's eyes moving rapidly behind his closed eye lids.

Chuck was standing in what he could only call a white world that appeared to have no walls , no ceiling, no floors, and no horizons. Everywhere he looked there were piles of paper, binders, and file folders littered all over. Under each pile of paper was what he could only describe as some sort of spiraling portal.

Quickly looking down at his chest, Chuck felt all around, pulling at his shirt when he didn't feel any pain. There was no blood, no bullet holes.

"Morpheus?" Chuck asked softly, half smiling. No answer came, although he hadn't really expected any.

Chuck walked to the nearest pile of paper, hesitating as he approached the spiraling portal underneath. He bent down and carefully picked up a file folder. He noticed it was the top-secret dossier for Peyman Alahi, or Senor Wookie. Chuck slowly walked to various other piles, finding information about General Stanfield, Dr. Zarnow, and many others.

Chuck stopped after visiting a few piles, he realized where he was, "The Intersect." The words only came out as a whisper, almost as if he was afraid to say them.

"Yes, that is what I am." A voice came from behind him. Chuck spun around faster than he'd ever had, stumbling a few steps back after seeing who had spoken.

Standing in front of him, was Dr. Victor Stone, the man that had created the algorithm that was used in the machine Intersect and what he had "installed" into his own mind a few days before.

"You... you're, Dr. Stone." Chuck babbled.

The man shook his head in the negative. "I am the Intersect."

Chuck stared at the man, he was quite confused. "Huh?"

The Intersect gave a small gentle smile, his arms extending out, "Everything you see here is the Intersect, or should I say this is your concept of what the Intersect is like."

"My concept?" Chuck said, more to himself, "I always thought of it as a database, not a blank room with piles of information. And I definitely never thought there would be some scientist standing in the middle of it all."

"That would be what your conscious mind thinks of it. But this is what you really consider it as. A vast expanse of unknown with only information from the ideas that you've flashed on." The man stared at him for a few seconds before adding, "And I haven't always been here."

Chuck looked at him in confusion before a dawning realization occurred to him, "You're the algorithm! That's why you look like Dr. Stone."

The man nodded, "I am the device that your mind uses as the search and relational tool to identify information."

Chuck looked around the room again, scratching the back of his neck. "The Intersect is kind of empty. Where _is_ all the information?"

"It's here." The man said as he began to slowly walk around. "It's all here. You just can't see it."

"You can?" Chuck asked him eagerly.

"Not quite," The man gave him another smile. "I only see what you see right now. A vast empty space with piles of information scattered around. When you flash, this room fills with piles upon piles of unreadable information. At least unreadable to you."

The man gave him a small but hearty laugh, "I go through all of the piles and when I find pertinent information I make them readable for you."

Chuck looked at him in surprise, "I thought you're a beam search algorithm, but it sounds like you do a brute force search every time? Isn't that slow and wasteful?"

"Not a brute force, I'm a heavily modified multi-beam search algorithm. This vast space you see only appears infinite. The information in the Intersect is limited and when you flash the boundaries of the room are visible."

Chuck looked thoughtful, "So a brute force search would have you just go up and down and search every single pile of information, uncovering as you go. And that's just too slow, especially with an unknown dataset."

Chuck started to pace around, "But as a modified beam search you start at a random stack but only go to piles of information that appear to be the most pertinent to what's being flashed on. You skip those that aren't important to the flash." Chuck looked at the man, "And as multi-beam you have multiple threads of search paths."

The man nodded, his smile widened slightly.

Chuck looked around, getting more confused by the second. "The Intersect is part of my memory, hidden somewhere. I'm assuming it's hidden since I can't see it or access it. But if this is the Intersect, where's all my regular memories?"

"This isn't a representation of your memory, this is the representation of the Intersect. Currently, as far as you understand yourself or don't understand yourself, the Intersect is a separate entity in your mind."

"If it's not part of my memory, how do I remember the things that I have flashed on?"

The man walked to a pile of paper and knelt down next to it. "This vortex you see underneath here is what your regular memory uses to gain access to this information."

Chuck sat down, a dreadful curiosity written all over his face, "As interesting as this is and as confused as I am about this, I just want to ask one question."

The man nodded his head.

"Am I dead?" Chuck asked. He only received a smile in reply.

Sarah sat down on her bed facing the large scenic windows on the one side of her room. Her shoulders were slumped, her face wearing a despondent look. Her room was dark, the ambient light from the moon and the clock giving out a soft, almost alien glow. Looking over she saw the clock showing 2:30am. She had been staring at the ceiling for the past 2 hours, trying to get to sleep.

Sarah stood up and walked over to the table by the door. Reaching in she grabbed a micro-disc that she had taken from Casey's apartment while he wasn't looking. Inserting it into her surveillance equipment she grabbed the remote and slipped back into bed. The moment she hit play, the sounds of Chuck and Morgan were heard in her room. Their conversation from the previous day repeating itself.

"Chuck..." Sarah whispered, falling asleep a few minutes later.

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A/N: Sorry this took longer to come out than my previous updates. I got another project to crank on at work this past week and this upcoming week so all the spare time I have outside of my normal 8 hours is devoted to this second project.


	10. Chapter 10 I'll Huff and I'll Puff

A/N: **Physical violence and torture used in this chapter. **I don't think it's as graphic as I could write it and I didn't think that expounding on the graphical details at this point is beneficial to the story, but it definitely does state/hint what occurred. I don't think anything truly horrific or grotesque occurred, but then again that's just me.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 10: I'll Huff and I'll Puff

Sarah and Casey stood on the observation side of a two-way mirror, looking through at the person occupying the stark silver interrogation room. There was a monitor showing their two directors in their control room. The directors were watching their monitors as they saw the video feed for two interrogation rooms and the control room. Sarah and Casey had been called in at 7am that morning to a CIA holding facility, General O'Hare Jr. had been taken while on the way to work, his wife and children as she was driving them to school, and the General's parents while lounging at their home.

Sarah looked at her watch, it was just past 8:20am. They had separated General O'Hare Jr. from the rest of his family and let them stew for a bit, neither group knowing the other was captive. She took a glance behind her at the other two-way mirror in the observation room. The General's wife, 17 year old son, 13 year old daughter, and his two aged parents were sitting scared beyond belief in the room. Her stern eyes returned to the General himself, looking supremely calm. No one had talked to him when he was brought in. Knowing the man was a former agent and high level NSA management, their plan was to physically exhaust him to ratchet up the physical pain first. They would then initiate conversation, attempting to ask him the questions, knowing he would still refuse. The psychological torture would be the next stage.

Taking one last look at her watch Sarah turned to the table at her left and grabbed two items and pocketed them.

"I'm going in." Sarah tossed over her shoulder as she left the observation room.

As Sarah walked into the General's interrogation room, she noticed his eyes rack over her body. He didn't say a word, his face angry but calm. She walked around his chair and checked on the handcuffs that trapped him to the chair. Both his arms and his legs were secured. She pushed the table away from the captive's chair and leaned against it, looking at the General with an impassive face.

While Sarah stared at him she pulled out a roll of hand tape and began to tape up her right hand and then her left. The General's demeanor never changed. She flexed her hands to test for flexibility after she had finished taping her hand up. She stood up and slowly walked in front of the man in the chair. Without saying a word Sarah's taped up right fist came crashing down onto the side of the man's jaw.

The General's head snapped harshly to the side, his breath leaving his body as a trickle of blood traced down his chin. The muscles in his neck strained from the force of her blow. Sarah pivoted her body and quickly pulled her torso and right arm back before unleashing it again to the now exposed area of the General's head, where the ear met the jaw and neck. He gave a loud grunt as spittle and blood flew out of his mouth.

Quickly, Sarah pulled her left arm back, bent low, and rammed it into the left side of her captive's abdomen. As the General's body bent forward, as far as the constraints allowed, Sarah's right elbow came smashing down to the upper side of the General's head. A howl of pain finally erupted from the captive's mouth. Her face was still as impassive as if there wasn't anything in the room that interested her. She slowly walked around the General and noticed the strain that the handcuffs were putting on the skin of his wrists.

As Sarah came to stand in front of O'Hare again she launched a vicious right kick that sent the General's head flying back. Blood sprayed out as a scream tore from his throat. If the chair hadn't been bolted to the floor he would have easily tipped back and fallen. Sarah stepped back, letting him catch his breath a little. She had 30 minutes with him in this initial phase before Casey would come in and have his turn. She looked at the clock, she would give him 5 minutes to rest.

Sarah hopped onto the table and sat on it's edge. She sat and stared at him. When the General finally looked her in the eye, she reached into her pocket and produced the other item she had brought.

"What the hell do you want? Who are you people?" O'Hare croaked out.

Sarah looped the fingers of her right hand through the brass knuckles and fiddled with it as she waited for the 5 minutes. She continued to stare at O'Hare, not bothering to say anything. After the 5 minutes she walked over to him and pulled her right arm back.

Sarah walked into the observation room 30 minutes later, after coming from the bathroom to wash up. She placed the brass knuckles and hand tape on the table where she had picked them up from. Her hands didn't show any of the blood that had soaked deeply into the tape she had worn. She stood next to Casey, "Your turn."

Casey looked at the clock, "I'll give him 5 minutes."

Sarah snuck a look at General Beckman. She noted Beckman's pale face, extremely rigid posture, and her hands tightly clasped together. If she wasn't part of the feed she would have sported a large grin. She and Casey had discussed how to go about working the information out of O'Hare. They both agreed that he would clam up if they had gone in and done the regular questioning routine. They were going to resort to drastic measures.

Casey took off his coat and moved to a cart. He pushed it out of the observation room and the moment he entered into O'Hare's interrogation room, the captive General's face expressed shock. That is, as much as it could express shock after the work over that Sarah had done.

"Agent Casey?" O'Hare questioned, his visible right eye hardened, "What is the meaning of this?"

Casey didn't say anything as he moved the cart right in front of the General, he noted the man's whimper. Casey took a good look at the captive man, taking in his appearance.

O'Hare's left eye had swollen shut, several massive cuts were still bleeding out from around the left side of the man's face. Casey realized that Sarah had left the right side of O'Hare's face mostly untouched, Casey almost smirked. He reached into his pockets and put on the black leather gloves that he produced from it. O'Hare's nose was definitely broken, blood poured from it, making a darkly sick crimson river that surged past his mouth and down his chin. His hands were bleeding from straining against the hand cuffs and forcing the metal to dig in. He was definitely sure that at least two fingers were broken when Sarah had kicked hard against the bound hands. He was pretty sure O'Hare had a few broken ribs and a broken arm. The cracks he heard while Sarah had worked him over couldn't have been anything else.

"As your superior Agent Casey, you will let me go!" The captive General growled out, his right eye trying to track Casey as the agent walked behind O'Hare's chair.

Casey's response was a savage right hook that landed on O'Hare's right temple. Casey immediately followed it with a brutal elbow to the back of the head.

"Casey! Let me go, that's an order!" O'Hare screamed after recovering from the two hits. His voice carried a hint of fear in it.

Casey's face sneered in distaste. The General was already weakening, how embarrassing. As Casey walked in front of the captive man, he kicked out into the man's abdomen, trying to get the same place he had seen Sarah work earlier. O'Hare didn't even scream, all the air had left his body, his face turning blue as he spit out blood and saliva. It didn't take more than a half a second before he slumped over unconscious.

"Disgusting." Casey growled lowly. He decided to give the man 5 minutes and began to setup for the rest of his session.

General O'Hare Jr. sputtered awake as a bucket of water was dumped over his head. He looked around, slightly frightened as he realized what was about to happen. Casey was standing to the side, leaning against the table. O'Hare looked down at his bare feet, now placed in a tub of water.

"I'll have your badge for this Casey! You and whoever that woman was, you'll both pay!" O'Hare spat out.

Casey picked up two long pointed rods that had wires attached to them. The other end of that wire was attached to a machine that had multiple dials on it. Casey looked O'Hare in the eyes and smirked just before he stabbed a rod deeply into each of the captive's leg.

General O'Hare screamed in pain, his eyes watering. Casey let O'Hare catch his breath before he turned the machine on and dialed in the level of electricity that now flowed up the wire, through the rods, and into O'Hare's body. Agonizing cries filled the room.

Close to 30 minutes later Casey pushed the cart back into the observation room, the two metal rods thickly coated in blood. Sarah glanced at him quickly before looking back into O'Hare's room. The man was a mess now, physically broken, puncture wounds throughout his body as Casey had alternated relocating the two rods as the session went on, and tears, snot, and blood covered him completely.

"How long do you want to wait till we start the next phase?" Casey asked.

Sarah gave a sideways glance at the two directors on the screen. General Beckman was visibly shaking. Director Graham looked bored. "30 minutes, let the pain start seeping in." Sarah replied, she looked over at Casey, "You want to question him or work the family?"

Casey looked at Sarah closely for a scant few seconds before responding, "You go ahead and use your charms on him, I'll take care of the family."

Sarah nodded, a whisper of relief crossed her features.

400 miles north of their location, Chuck's eyes attempted to flutter open. On the third try he was able to get a blurry view of a white ceiling with fluorescent lights. Lazily dragging his eyes to the left he saw the IV stand and realized he was in a hospital.

"How you doing Carmichael?" A concerned male voice came from his right side.

Slightly surprised that it wasn't any voice he immediately recognized Chuck slightly turned his head to the right. It took him a few seconds before he recognized the man sitting in the lone chair of the room.

"Agent Woods?" Chuck whispered out, his voice hoarse and dry.

Woods nodded in return as he slowly got up. "Let me let the doctor know that you're awake, we'll see about getting you some ice chips yeah?"

"Sarah? Casey?" Chuck asked, his voice drying up the more he used it and his eye lids slowly drooping as the pain medication and his weak body tried to drag him back down into sleep. In his current state he didn't notice the slight hesitation from Woods.

"They were here earlier but had to head to debrief General Beckman and Director Graham. Why don't you go ahead back to sleep, I'm sure they'll be here shortly." Woods supplied as he walked out the door. Exiting the hospital room, he walked right into a large warehouse like room. It was definitely not a hospital.

Woods walked into a make shift office and looked at the hospital staff that were sitting or lounging on the furniture. "He's awake Doc."

Dr. Harris nodded as he stood up and walked out the room. The nurse, Linda Smith, accompanied him. Woods left the room and continued up a ramp into what looked like a large conference room. Colonel Westing was sitting in the room at a computer.

"Sir, Carmichael's awake. The doc's going in to check him over now." Woods said.

Westing nodded, his focus still on the computer, "I'll be down to talk to the good doctor shortly. Carmichael thinks he's in a hospital?"

Woods nodded in response, "He's still pretty out of it but since he wasn't panicking I assume he thinks he's in a hospital."

"We'll start with you questioning him. Play up the friendly bit and the hospital charade to see if he bites. If not, we'll go at him with our normal means. We'll start tomorrow morning."

"What of Excalibur?" Woods asked, showing a good bit of curiosity.

Westing looked at Woods thoughtfully, staring right into his eyes. "Excalibur will be here tomorrow afternoon. I expect all the equipment to be in place and ready by then."

"It'll be done by the morning sir." Woods answered.

Sarah slammed the door to General O'Hare's interrogation room, immediately jolting the captive man awake. As she moved the table in front of O'Hare's chair, Sarah noted the foul stench in the room. It was musky from sweat and thick with the smell of copper from his blood. She sat down in front of him and watched as his eyes locked onto hers.

"This could go one of two ways General O'Hare. The first is you tell us what we need to know and the second is you don't, which would force us to find other means to extract the information from you." Sarah began, the General stayed quiet, his swollen face sealed of all emotions other than anger.

"Where did you take Charles Carmichael and the parts for the MLR2G?" The General's face scowled quickly and slightly before closing itself off again. Sarah had caught the flicker of change.

"I don't know what you're talking about." The warbling voice responded, a line of drool spilled out from the swollen and cut lips.

"We know you work with Fulcrum." Sarah began again, pausing to see his reaction. When she saw his shoulders tense ever so slightly she continued. "We also know that you're working directly with a Colonel Richard Westing and NSA Agent Woods, who have orchestrated the interception of the last two devices for the assembly of the MLR2G. So I ask again, where is Charles Carmichael and the parts?"

"You've got the wrong guy, I only over see the Western Division of European Strategic Command." The General slurred.

"Fine." Sarah said calmly as she stood up and walked out the room. A few seconds later she walked in, carting a mental stand that held a TV screen on it. She placed the TV to the side of the table and plugged it into the electrical socket as well as hooking it to a coaxial jack.

When Sarah sat back down and turned the TV on, the video feed from the other interrogation room came into view. Sitting in a line, each one tied to the chair was the General's wife, his daughter, his son, the General's father, and his mother.

"What the fuck is going on here?" The General raged, his lower lip flapping with effort as he strained against the handcuffs.

"I warned you to tell me the information or we'd find other means to extract it from you." Sarah calmly and coldly replied.

"I don't know anything that you're talking about! They have nothing to do with my work!" The strain to his voice was apparent as his face and throat turned red from his efforts to free himself. "Do you know who they are..."

"I know they're your family, other than that I don't care." Sarah replied as she took out a walkie talkie. Depressing the device she said, "Start on the father."

O'Hare's only visible eye widened as he saw a large man walk into the room, pushing a cart of equipment with him. His agitation increased as he realized he could hear the panicked fear that came from all his family members. The man didn't say a word as he put on a pair of black leather gloves. Sarah knew it was Casey in there, he was just currently wearing a black ski mask over his face to protect his identity.

"Who the fuck are you?" O'Hare screamed, his eye staring deeply into hers.

Sarah gave a cold smirk, "National security is a bitch isn't it?"

The General's head snapped back to the TV when he heard even louder screams and a heavy thud as the masked man slammed a fist into his father's face and body repeatedly.

"Your father's pretty old, I don't think he can last long." Sarah said in a bored tone. "Pity, I don't think your family signed up to serve the greater good and benefited from the excellent physical conditioning and training that we Federal agents received."

Casey stepped back from the father, the old man's face a bloody mess as his head hung low, his body in a coughing fit.

Sarah watched as desperate resolve curtained the O'Hare's face as he took a staggered breath. "I don't know anything." He said calmly.

Sarah picked up the walkie talkie, "Kill his mother."

"No!" O'Hare screamed as he watched Casey pick up a pistol from the cart and emptied three bullets into his mother's chest. "Fuck you! I'll make you pay for this!" He was screaming, his voice hoarse as he cursed her over and over, spittle flying in all directions. The family on the TV screen was hysterical, the screams and crying rampaging from the TV's speakers.

"Where is Charles Carmichael and the rail gun parts?" Sarah calmly replied. "You tell us, they go free."

O'Hare was shacking with rage, his eyes glued to the screen as tears cascaded down his face. Sarah continued talking, "You're a traitor to the United States of America. You deserve all the punishment you receive, but your family doesn't deserve this. You're the only one that can stop this."

She looked up at the TV screen as Casey placed the pistol back. "They'll never know it's the government, we'll just say it was some terrorist. They'll be branded local heroes having stood up to terrorists.

"Carmichael and the parts, where are they?"

O'Hare stared at her in hatred and spat out, "Fuck you!"

Sarah reactivated the walkie-talkie, "Kill the father."

O'Hare was straining against his bonds again, screaming profanities at her as he watched Casey put three bullets into the man's chest. The father didn't die immediately, his body coughing as blood bubbled from his mouth. Sarah noted that Casey purposely placed the bullets in locations that weren't immediately lethal. They listened as the family members' voices tore out of them. They watched as O'Hare's father slowly bled out.

"I'll leave them up there so you can watch them. Just so you know, we went easy on your parents. Wouldn't want them to die before we were done with them. Don't expect the same treatment with the rest of your family. They're healthy enough to suffer for a long time." Sarah stated as she walked to the door. "You can hear them, but they can't see or hear you. I'll be back in an hour."

When she returned to the control room she turned the temperature in O'Hare's interrogation room up by three degrees. She turned her head as Casey walked in and took his ski mask off.

"How are you doing?" She asked him softly.

Casey looked at her and then at the screen that held the unreadable looks of General Beckman and Director Graham. He looked directly at Beckman, "It'd be more fun if they could fight back." Casey said offhandedly.

Chuck looked around him and realized he was inside the Intersect again, the figment of his imagination that looked like Dr. Victor Stone standing in front of him. "This is the second time I've dreamed this. I've never done this before. How come it's happening now?"

The man just smiled and shrugged, "You tell me, what do you think?"

Chuck snorted, "You sound like Diana Troy."

Looking around Chuck put his hands in his pants pockets, standing and absently drinking everything in once again. He walked a few paces to a pile of papers in front of him, stopped, then slowly walked to another. He did this a few times before he stopped and turned to the man, "It's really boring here isn't it?"

The man laughed, "This is _your_ mind my friend."

Chuck stared at him for a half second before he started to laugh as well, noticing as he did so that everything around him was slowly disappearing. As he opened his eyes he noticed he sterile white walls of his hospital room. Looking to his right he saw three chairs, two of which were empty, and Agent Woods was sitting in the third one, reading a magazine.

"Woods." Chuck whispered out, his mouth and throat still dry.

"Carmichael! Glad you've rejoined us." Woods said as he got up, bringing the glass of water that was at the bedside table. "You just missed Agent Walker," He lied.

Chuck took a few small sips of the water through the straw. "Where'd she go?" He asked, his voice sounding stronger than it had been.

Woods shrugged as he sat back down, "Dunno. Just told me she'd be back later." He grabbed the magazine and continued to read it, covertly watching the man in the bed.

Chuck stared at the ceiling, a question suddenly popping into his head, "Did we secure the second pulse generator?"

"Yup." Woods began, still looking at the magazine, "It's secure with the other one. General Beckman and Director Graham said to tell you what a great job you've been doing." He paused as he put the magazine down and looked at Chuck. "You're one hell of an analyst bud."

Chuck flushed in embarrassment, "Ah, lucky I guess." That earned a quiet stare from Woods before he went back to his magazine. "How come you got the short end of the straw to baby sit me?" Chuck asked again, looking at the other agent.

Woods gave a bark of laughter, "Logistics. The bad ass agents have already gone back to HQ, they're just the muscle. Agent Kramer isn't from around this area and since I am, I got lucky."

Agent Woods leaned forward with his elbows on his knees as he gave Chuck a friendly smile, "It kind of works in my favor though."

Chuck looked surprised, "How so?"

"Watching you work in that van was amazing. I've never seen anyone do what you did. It's like you're some freaking encyclopedia. I was wondering if you could give me pointers as to what it is or how you're able to do that."

Chuck began to fidget, his hands rubbing the bed sheets nervously. "I.. uhh, don't do anything special." Nervous laughter came out of him. "I just do a lot of reading... "

Agent Woods leaned back and gave him a large smile, "Got it. Trade secrets."

Chuck hesitantly said, "I was uhh, actually wondering if you could give me pointers, You and Agent Kramer worked the equipment and team like masters." Woods' cocked an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I mean, I'm always supposed to stay in the car you know," Chuck continued, "But I always feel so useless. But watching you two, it's was awesome."

Woods laughed heartily, "I'll share my secrets if you share yours!"

Woods stood up, "I'm going outside real quick to make a phone call. I'll be back. Get some rest buddy."

Chuck missed the calculating look that took over Woods' face as he walked out the door. Chuck was looking at the ceiling again, his mind wandering back to the two visits he had to the Intersect room that he had dreamed. Something was very odd because unlike his other dreams, where they would start to fade almost immediately, he remembered in vivid detail everything that had happened.

"This is _your_ mind my friend." The last thing that the imaginary Stone had said was bothering him. It almost felt like there was a message behind that. Chuck looked at the door, wondering how he was going to explain all this to Ellie this time.

As Woods walked into Colonel Westing's office he noticed the man was on the phone. He sat down after he was signaled to enter.

"Don't worry, I'll deal with it." Westing finished on the phone as he hung up. He looked at Woods and said, "We think General O'Hare Junior has been compromised."

Sarah walked back into O'Hare's interrogation room, the stench she had smelled earlier was stronger now. She could feel the humid and musky essence of the room after the temperature had risen the three degrees. She looked at O'Hare as she sat down, he was sweating up a storm and his bruises and cuts looked angry and raw. He hadn't stopped looking at the TV set since she had left the room.

"You shot them with my gun." O'Hare's said in a dead voice.

Sarah nodded, "Crazy what happens when a man goes insane, kills his family and disappears."

The burning hatred that the General gave her would have chilled her, if she even cared an ounce about the man or any of the people she ever interrogated.

O'Hare's head snapped back to the TV when renewed screams and fearful cries sounded out as Casey silently walked back into the room, pushing the cart of tools in, the ski mask back over his head.

"Charles Carmichael and the parts for the rail gun." Sarah began as she put her hands on the desk, "Where are they?"

O'Hare remained defiantly silent. Sarah brought out the the walkie-talkie from her jacket and depressed the button, "Work the son."

The TV screen showed Casey picking up a syringe and walking towards the General's son.

"What.. what is that?" O'Hare said, sounding panicked.

"It's a solution we've concocted. You should know all about it. A small dose will cause discomfort, aches all over the body. The larger the dose the higher the pain threshold." Sarah stated, nodding her head in the direction of the TV. "The amount in that syringe should be excruciating, especially for someone unused to pain."

The General's one eye widened and whispered, "B-14a."

Sarah nodded, responding nonchalantly, "Experimental still, as you know, the pain caused can sometimes be a bit too much. Makes for an uncooperative prisoner if they're so busy screaming in agony."

A few seconds after Casey injected the boy with the chemical, moans of pain could be heard as O'Hare's son tried to fold into himself, his teeth bitting into his lower lip. It was one minute later that the moans ratcheted to ear piercing screams of pain.

"That dose should last about 15 minutes. We do have the antidote you know, it'll stop the pain as quickly as 2 minutes." Sarah said as she leaned back in the chair, making herself comfortable. "Wanna tell me where Carmichael and the parts are?"

Aside from the screams of pain from the boy, the pleading and cries from his wife and daughter were wearing on O'Hare's conscious. "Stop it, I'll tell you what I know."

"Go ahead." Sarah sat up quickly, leaning in.

"Tell him to give him the antidote." O'Hare demanded.

"Nope. He'll get the antidote after you talk. We don't want to waste that dose do we? We only have another 10 syringes left."

O'Hare stared at her angrily. "If the noise is bothersome right now..." Sarah kept talking as she lowered the volume on the TV, "So, talk."

"Westing contacted me last night, told me that he had acquired Carmichael. I don't know where they are right now." O'Hare rambled, his eyes glued to the TV. "He's supposed to contact me tomorrow to let me know their status."

"How?"

"Phone, he'll be calling me on my cell."

"How do you not know where they've taken Carmichael?"

"Location is only known by Westing and the on-site operatives."

"Why did you take Carmichael?"

"Agent Woods told us what Carmichael did during the mission. Stated that it was like watching a machine at work, the amount of information that he was serving up. What intrigued us was the actual information he knew. We needed to find out where he got that information from."

Sarah's eyes narrowed, "What do they intend to do to him?"

O'Hare stared hard into her eyes, "Probably the same that you're doing to me." His ravaged lips rising up into an ugly grin.

"And the components?" Sarah asked, her hand fisted tightly.

O'Hare just shook his head, "I only handled bringing them in. Where they went and what the time table is, I don't even know."

Sarah leaned back in the chair, "What time are you being contacted tomorrow?"

"1pm."

Sarah picked up the walkie-talkie, "Give him the antidote." She got up from the table and opened the door, revealing four armed agents. "You've got a reprieve until tomorrow."

O'Hare strained against his bonds, "My family, you said you'd free them."

A shark like grin was plastered across Sarah's face, "Oh no, they get to rest in our accommodations. We're not going to release them until we've received and confirmed the where abouts of Carmichael."

As Sarah walked into the control room, Casey was taking his mask off. She repeated the information she gained to him.

Casey's face scrunched up in disgust, "I don't believe he folded so fast." He watched the armed guards escort O'Hare out of the room.

"How long did you think he would last?" General Beckman bitterly asked.

Casey smiled evilly at her, "He should have sacrificed his whole family and himself for the greater good. But I guess that's why he's a traitor."

Later that night as Sarah sat in a chair in her room, looking out the large windows, she had replayed the day's events in her head but at the moment she was focused on the conversation that she and Casey had shared on the drive home.

"You enjoyed today didn't you CIA?" Casey had almost sounded happy.

Sarah looked at him in shock for a second before looking out the window, her features calm. She didn't answer him.

Casey snorted, "That's what I thought."

Sarah frowned, "I was doing my job, like you were."

"Probably," Casey began as he pulled up to her hotel, "But you can't lie to me and say you didn't enjoy it over a day at the Wiener."

Just as Sarah was about to close the door to the car Casey said, "I can't imagine why you would need to hear a day's worth of those two idiots talking about sandwiches and playing video games, but next time, just ask me for it."

As Sarah walked to her bed she looked at her surveillance equipment. She had used it yesterday to listen to Chuck's conversation with Morgan to help her sleep. She got into bed, falling asleep with a sad frown on her face. The room was quiet, the surveillance equipment turned off.

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	11. Chapter 11 Dead End

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 11 – Dead End

Chuck sat slightly inclined in his hospital bed, his hands rubbed against his sore chest. He was beginning to get a nagging feeling that something wasn't right. He had woken up late this morning to once again find Agent Woods at his bed side but no Sarah or Casey. It seemed they were playing phone tag. It didn't help that there wasn't a clock on the wall or a TV in his room either. Chuck decided that he would try to stay awake this whole day, he needed to see them and find out what was really going on.

Chuck looked up when the door to his room opened and Agent Woods walked in with a brown paper bag in his hand. "You're looking better Carmichael." Woods said as he walked over and dropped the bag onto Chuck's lap. "Figured you'd be going bonkers with nothing to do."

Chuck grabbed the bag and pulled a stack of magazines out, his eyes brightened and a huge smile took over. "Thanks!"

"Toss me one will you?" Woods asked as he sat down. Chuck threw him the top magazine.

After a few minutes of silent reading Chuck looked over at the agent. He noticed for the first time that Woods was wearing casual clothes. A slight pang of guilt took over. "You don't have to stay here you know."

Woods looked up, "Someone needs to protect you buddy. Everyone else is too busy gallivanting around doing whatever it is they do."

"They didn't assign you any new tasks to work on or another project?"

Woods shook his head, "Nah. I'm like you. They tell me to stay in the car and do my thing. I'm logistics and strategy, just an analyst like you."

"What type of training did you do to get so good at your job?" Chuck asked, his curiosity rising.

"It's not the training, it's the experience. You've had the same training as Agent Kramer right, since you're both CIA analysts?" Woods asked, looking closely at him.

Chuck looked to the ceiling and then to the bed sheets, "Uh, yeh. Same training..."

Woods' eyes narrowed slightly and quickly before he put on the friendly face again. "How long have you been an analyst Carmichael?"

"Not even a year? Yeh, not even a year yet."

"I've been an analyst with the NSA for twenty years and I'll say that you're doing perfectly fine. You get better after each job, it's practice, practice, and more practice for us. Running drills with your team, all that fun jazz." Woods began, bringing up his magazine nonchalantly to pretend he was looking at it. "Actually, I think you're doing better than fine. It's like you've got a photographic memory there."

Chuck coughed nervously into his hands and winced as a sharp pain stabbed into his chest, "Yeh, something like that."

Woods stretched his legs out, getting into a more casual and nonthreatening posture. "Half the intel you provided on these two past missions was new to Kramer and myself. I'd like to get a hold of that source material myself. Who's your boss? I can find my NSA equivalent to see if I can ask for permission to get access to that data."

Chuck began to fidget uncomfortably, "General Beckman and Director Graham are my bosses?"

Woods sat up quickly, feigning surprise, "You report directly to the two directors? Wow, and not even a year in. Gotta say man, I'm a bit jealous."

"Well, actually, I report to Agent Walker and Casey first."

Woods' eyebrows quirked up, "You are one weird fellow you know?" Chuck gave him a questioning look. "I mean that you have both a CIA and NSA handler." Woods slipped the bait in.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders and gave a smile, "I guess I'm just lucky?"

Woods laughed, "You got the best of both worlds my friend." Woods looked at his watch and got up, "Sorry, got to call my gal. She'll have my head if I don't confirm plans for later. See you in a bit Carmichael."

"Thanks Agent Woods!" Chuck replied happily as he watched the agent leave the room. He went back to reading a magazine.

Woods walked quickly and directly into Westing's office. The Colonel looked up, "Anything so far?"

"He's not an analyst. He's definitely not a company man. I'd say he's an asset at best. He confirmed that Agent Walker and Casey are both his handlers. He doesn't show any of the knowledge or mannerisms that an agent or agency man would."

Westing leaned back in his chair, "Interesting. How are you going to approach his interrogation?"

"I don't think he's physically ready to be heavily leaned on. We may need to wait at least a few more days and even then we'd still have to be careful. But I'm not sure if that's workable considering what you said about General O'Hare being compromised. We might have to move sooner."

Westing waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about O'Hare. I'll deal with that. I'm pretty sure that Agent Casey and Walker are leaning on him for information, which is fine since only those of us here know of this location. They won't find us."

Woods nodded, waiting for the Colonel to continue.

"We're expecting Excalibur soon," Westing began, but stopped when he saw Woods' face seem to come alight. "An idea soldier?"

Woods nodded, "He's been very evasive when it comes to providing information on how he got access to the intel. I think I should give him one more go via casual conversation and if he doesn't come forth with the information we can drop him in with Excalibur. Monitor their interaction and see if we can learn anything from that."

Westing remained silent for a minute, mulling over the idea. "When would you want to introduce Carmichael?"

"In another day, I don't think we can wait further than that. There's only so many excuses that I can say he's missed his handlers before he starts demanding a phone. He's able to stay awake longer now too so that excuse is going to be dead as well. As he interacts with Excalibur he can heal and when he's ready we can lean on him."

Westing nodded, picking up a phone and dialing a number. "Westing here. Change of plans, we won't need your services for a few days. I'll contact you with time and place."

Woods looked curious as Westing hung up the phone. "I have another player in the field."

Glancing at his watch Westing got up, "I need to make a call to O'Hare soon."

Sarah and Casey sat in the control room looking into the interrogation room that General O'Hare was sitting in once again. Sarah looked to the right monitor to see the faces of the two directors peering at the video feed. She was fidgeting nervously as she looked at her watch again.

"If you don't stop looking at that watch I'm going to break it." Casey whispered.

Sarah gave him a quick scornful look before purposely looking at her watch again. They were only 10 seconds out from the call-in time. They had O'Hare's cell phone placed in front of him. The phone was wired and the conversation would be heard in the control room. They also had a kill switch to end the call if needed.

Sarah jumped slightly when the phone rang, she inadvertently held her breath as the voices came through the loud speakers.

"O'Hare." The General responded.

"General sir, Westing here." Casey and Sarah recognized the voice from their stakeout in Las Vegas with Bryce.

"What's your status?" O'Hare asked, looking into the reflective mirror.

"Package is secured, stable, and recovering. We'll be initiating communication in a few days when the package won't be too hurt from any slight stumbles it may encounter."

"What's your location?"

"Sir?"

"I want to be present for the discussions."

"Do you think that wise sir?"

"Shouldn't be a problem."

There was a slight pause before, "Location is 394, East Durango Street, Phoenix, Nevada."

The moment the address was spoken the two directors were on the phone contacting local agents. They were trying to get eyes on the location to gather intel.

"Understood, O'Hare out."

When the General had hung up Sarah walked into the room, she grabbed the cell phone.

"My family?" The General questioned.

"Once we get Carmichael, this will all be over." Sarah responded. The moment she left the room and closed the door, she leaned back against it. A small sigh of relief escaped her mouth. Schooling her features she walked back into the control room to plan out the next steps with her superiors.

Chuck was still awake when Woods next entered his room. Sarah nor Casey had dropped by all day. He couldn't find his personal belongings either.

"Have you heard from Sarah or Casey?" Chuck asked Woods as he sat down.

"Nothing yet."

"You wouldn't happen to know where they put my phone and other stuff do you?" Chuck asked.

"That I don't know either, don't they put all that stuff in a bag somewhere?" Woods asked, looking slightly uncomfortable.

Chuck looked at the agent, the man was hiding something. "Could I borrow your phone?"

Woods looked up shocked, "I don't think that'd be a good idea." He stammered, "I've got quite a few confidential contacts on this thing."

"Ahh, trade secrets?" Chuck asked, faking a small laugh.

"So Carmichael, you think you can get me access to the data sources you've been working from?" Woods asked.

Chuck glanced at him sideways, "I thought you were gonna try to get in contact with Sarah or Casey first to get permission. Don't think I'd be able to just tell you."

Woods stood up, his demeanor changed as he did. "Unfortunately for you, you're going to have to tell us."

Woods opened the room's door and called out, "Tear it down."

Whatever Chuck had expected, it wasn't the very walls and ceiling of his hospital room being dismantled, revealing nothing but a large warehouse. He felt he had been spending too much time in warehouses lately, he was going to need to have a talk with Casey and Sarah.

"I'd like to welcome you to my office Mr. Carmichael." A voice behind Chuck boomed.

Chuck's face went pale when he saw Colonel Westing walk into view. He was starting to freak out.

"Amazing, you recognize me." Westing began as he walked closer, "You really do have quite a bit of information in there don't you?"

Chuck felt his bed being moved. "I'd suggest you not try anything, it'd be a shame for you to rip your stitches. Speaking of which, you'll be resting here for a few days as you heal up. We'll be back to talk then."

"Woods? What's going on?" Chuck asked, panicked.

Chuck arrived at a large wall with a set of double doors. He watched as Westing walked to a keypad and entered in the code, unlocking the door. He felt his bed being pushed into the room.

Westing swept his arm across the room, "I hope these accommodations are adequate. I'd like to introduce you to your bunk mate..."

"Dr. Victor Stone." Chuck whispered out, shocking the people in the room. He stared at a 63 year old man, his hair all gray, with a round and pleasant face, and small square glasses. In front of him, in real life, was the figment of his imagination that he had been talking to in the Intersect world he made up.

"Intriguing." Westing said as he walked out the room, locking it.

The location Sarah and Casey were given was approximately 6 hours east of LA. The agents that had staked out the farm house reported no suspicious activity. Only what appeared to be a normal family of 3, a father and mother as well as their son, going about their daily business.

"You sure this is the location?" Sarah asked Casey again as they looked through their binoculars. Casey just gave her an annoyed look in response.

"If it's a front, it's a pretty damn good one." Sarah breathed out.

"Agent Casey." A voice over their radio called out.

Casey activated his walkie, "Casey, go."

"You and Agent Walker need to come to the far eastern edge of the woods. There's something you need to see.."

Sarah and Casey shared a worried look before they slowly exited their observation spot in the woods surrounding the house. They went at a jog towards the location, spotting two agents as they approached the area. As they got closer they saw a black van ditched into a ravine.

"Open the door." Sarah asked the agent.

When the door was slung open Sarah and Casey looked inside. The dark cavern of the van was empty except for three long gas canisters. Casey looked at Sarah, "Guess this is the place."

Casey activated his radio mic and spoke into it, "Prep for entry in 5 minutes."

Sarah and Casey put on their vests and ski masks. They were armed with just their sidearms for such a close quarter assault. Sarah slung onto her shoulder a gas powered short rifle that fired a small plastic ball. Casey grabbed a riot shield, his side arm out in his right hand.

The front door to the house caved in as the hand held battering ram slammed into the sweet spot right off of the door handle. A line of five swat geared agents filed swiftly into the room yelling for the occupants to drop to the ground. Casey moved in first with the shield low, Sarah right behind him with her non-lethal weapon moving from one target to the next.

At the same time the rear door caved in and another five agents came stomping through the room.

Once the first floor was quickly declared to be safe and cleared, three agents from the first group moved up the stairs to the second floor to clear the individual rooms. Three members from the second group moved down to the basement, declaring an all clear.

Sarah noticed that as the group of three agents came back down the stairs from the top floor they were escorting a young man, no more than 18 years of age, with his hands zip tied behind his back. Her eyes narrowed as she saw one of the agent's ski mask removed, exposing his identity. She looked over at Casey and he had noticed as well. She nodded her head towards the exposed agent while she walked over to the family.

The family was still lying on the ground their hands clasped behind their head. Looking over at the agents hovering towards the back of the room she asked them, "Find anything downstairs?"

One of the agents shook his head, "No ma'am, it's clean."

Sarah looked behind her at the agents that had just come from the second floor, "You?"

"All clean, only the boy." One of the agents replied.

"Get them up." Sarah told the agents that were standing guard over the family. She looked over at Casey as he was talking with the agent that had his mask removed. Casey didn't look happy.

"Take a seat." Sarah told the family members, "I need to ask you a few questions. Please be as honest with me as possible. If you don't know, let me know. Understand?"

She looked at each family member, making sure they each gave her a confirmation. "Do you know where Charles Carmichael is?"

The father spoke up, "I don't know who that is." He looked at each of his family members.

"I've never heard of him." The son said, the mother nodded her head.

Sarah looked at each of them hard for a few seconds before her eyes softened. She sighed. "What about the black van that's on the far edge of your property?"

"I found the van early this morning while I was checking on some broken fencing that I had noticed last night." The father started, "I called the sheriff after I found it and they're going to be bringing in a truck tomorrow morning to tow it away."

Sarah's head slumped down, "Thank you." She looked back at the family, "I'm sorry about this. We're investigating a crime and that van was a part of it."

"We're just farmers." The mother said, her voice still slightly hysterical.

"We only just started harvesting our crop five days ago, haven't left the farm at all this whole time." The son replied.

Sarah nodded, "Thank you. I believe." She looked around at the other agents. She pulled her phone out as she walked towards Casey.

"The boy struggled some and in the process pulled off Agent Myer's mask." Casey whispered as he led her outside the house.

"Shit," Sarah responded, sighing again. "The family doesn't know anything. They found the van this morning. Looks like it might have been dumped last night. We need to report this."

Casey nodded as she dialed Director Graham's number.

"Graham." Came the Director's voice.

"Sarah, sir. We're on location and it was a snipe hunt." Sarah reported.

"You're sure?" Graham's reply was tense.

"Yes sir, they're just farmers. We found a black van that appears to be one of the vans used during Chuck's capture. It had a few gas canisters in there that resembled those we saw from the video footage. Looks like the van was dumped last night and they didn't find it till this morning."

"That means they know we have O'Hare."

"That's what I've concluded as well." Sarah said, before adding, "We've got a problem though. Agent Myers was compromised. There was a struggle and his mask came off."

She heard a loud sigh from the other end of the line and a few seconds of silence before Graham spoke again, "Clean them up."

Sarah's eyes closed. She turned back toward the house and opened them again, Casey was eying her with particular interest.

"You hear me Walker?" Graham asked.

Sarah took a deep breath and released it, "I heard sir, but I don't think that's necessary." She noticed Casey's surprised look on his face.

"Excuse me?" Graham asked surprised.

"I think we can contain this without casualties sir..."

"We have an exposed operative Walker, your priority is to ensure that all witnesses are dealt with!"

"Sir, they're innocent non-combatants and we were in the wrong place. This family is relatively isolated, we could make sure they stay quiet about what happened today."

There was a long pause before Graham replied, "I'll get back in contact with you."

Sarah looked at her phone after he hung up on her.

"I assume the order was to silent the witnesses." Casey's voice behind her brought her out of her thoughts.

"Not yet. Graham's going to get back to me." Sarah quietly said.

Sarah gave a yelp of surprise as Casey grabbed her arm and moved them further away from the house. When he stopped he stared straight into her eyes. "What's up with you Walker?" Casey whispered fiercely.

"What do you mean?" Sarah's agitated reply came, a little louder than his.

"You were the epitome of the killer sociopath yesterday, having a grand ol' time wailing away at the General and then ordering the murder of his parents. And now this. You feeling guilty enjoying what you did yesterday so much?" Casey's harsh whisper brought a surprised look from Sarah at first before anger overtook her eyes.

Sarah wrenched her arm free from his grasp and pushed him away from her, "What about you? You didn't seem to have any qualms fisting it up with grandpa yesterday and no hesitation with the gun either!"

"I'm not the one disobeying orders now because I'm feeling guilty about yesterday..." Casey began, but stopped when Sarah grabbed his collar and pulled him down.

She stared him in the eyes and growled out, "I'm not feeling guilty about yesterday. What I did yesterday was a necessary evil. This, right now, is not necessary. This family poses no immediate threat. They're less likely to cause any trouble than Harry Tang. Doing anything to this family would be purely evil.

"And for the record, I did _not _enjoy what I had to do yesterday."

"Bullshit." Casey spit out, "Don't hide what you admitted last night."

Casey was knocked backwards as Sarah's fist connected solidly with his jaw. She was on top of him in a second, her hand still holding a handful of his collar.

"Don't confuse my refusal to answer any of your questions to be some misconception that I am in anyway like your cold war addicted self who needs to get his jollies off firing his weapon and killing as many people as possible." Sarah's growl was dangerously low and ferociously vicious.

"You're telling me you didn't enjoy yesterday at all? You had that gleam in your eye all day yesterday." Casey said, unafraid.

"I didn't enjoy anything." Sarah started, releasing Casey. "You want the truth? Fine. I felt satisfaction during the one-on-one with O'Hare. That man is a traitor to his country and directly responsible for Chuck's current situation. So yes, I felt a sense of satisfaction, a sense of purpose while delivering some of my own justice on him. The involvement of his family was nothing but disgusting. Like I said, it was a necessary evil."

Sarah looked at Casey, "And you, enjoyed these past few days didn't you? Shooting your gun, taking down the bad guys, beating up old men and shooting old women? Definite dream material for you isn't it."

Casey looked at her hard for a few seconds before saying in a softer voice, "I'm more like you than I'd like to admit."

He brushed himself off as he stood up, "I do what my country and government need me to do. O'Hare is a symbol of everything that I hate. He's a complete traitor and I have no remorse for what happens to him, whether by my hands or someone else's. His family is a different matter. I would have preferred if they hadn't been involved but every one of us knows that there's no way any career agent will give up information if there's not strong enough leverage to use against them.

"Don't forget, it was your call to bring the family in."

"I know. It was all a waste too. The only piece of information we were able to get was false and O'Hare is completely useless now. But that doesn't mean I was wrong in bringing them in nor does it mean I won't do it again the next time."

Casey's cell phone rang, his eyes showed no surprise as he answered it.

"Casey."

"Beckman here. Since Walker can't complete this task, you're to clean up the witnesses."

Casey looked at Sarah's slumped shoulders. "General, I don't think we need to go that far." Sarah's head shot up fast, her eyes huge.

"Excuse me?" Came the shocked reply from Beckman.

"I agree with Walker. We've already contacted the local law enforcement and they'll be arriving soon. I think we can convince the family to forget Myer's face."

"I don't believe this!" Beckman yelled into the phone. Casey moved the phone away from his ear, Sarah could hear the shouting coming from it. Two minutes later Casey hung up the phone and looked at Sarah, "Yeh, we're in trouble."

"When did we contact the police?" Sarah asked.

"Right now." Casey said as he dialed the sheriff and informed them of the situation.

"Thanks Casey." Sarah whispered as they walked back towards the house. Casey only nodded in reply. "Why?" Sarah asked, coming to a stop.

Casey looked at her. "Because killing these people is trivial crap. It's not for national security, it's not for the greater good, it's like playing God. So don't get me wrong, I _would_ kill you and Chuck if it was really required, but this family, no. The orders don't make sense. Like you said, we would have left a hole in Tang's head if it did."

Sarah shook her head and continued, "No, I mean why have you kept pushing me, invading, questioning?"

Casey was silent for a few seconds.

"You have issues Walker." Casey began, keeping his eyes in contact with hers. "You admitted to me the other day that you just realized you had feelings for Bartowski. Now, I don't give a rat's ass if you're both mauling each other behind a shrubbery somewhere, but I do need to know if you've still got a level head.

"This job is annoying enough without having two emotionally retarded partners making it worse. Can you do your job Walker? That's all I care about. Chuck seems to have picked up his slack, getting his ass in gear. You were screwed up with Bryce and Chuck, which in turn screwed Chuck up. I had two babies working with me, one just carried a gun.

"Now what you need to think abut Walker, is where you stand in all this. None of what we do is pretty, we've all of us got blood by the gallons on our hands. You gonna come clean to him? For him? Or you gonna hope he accepts you at face value?. Looks to me like Bartowski's tried to give you up and has refocused on his job. So Walker, what are you going to do about that?"

They started walking back to the house in silence, but before reaching the door Sarah ever so softly said, "I didn't listen to the surveillance tape of Chuck and Morgan last night."

"What?" Casey asked, confused.

Sarah looked at the moon in the sky, "I listened to their conversation the previous night, it gave me hope, helped me sleep. It was scary, needing to hear his voice. But last night, after what we had to do, after what I had to order you to do, I didn't feel like I deserved to hear his voice."

Casey barked out a laugh, which only resulted in Sarah looking at him angrily. "Look, you don't need to get all touche-feele with me. I didn't bring it up to be a shoulder to cry on. I don't need to know what gets you to sleep or not. Just do your job. "

"With no leads and O'Hare useless, our job just got harder."


	12. Chapter 12 The Blind King Arthur

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A/N: Sorry this is so late, works been pretty busy.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 12: The Blind King Arthur

Chuck sat in his bed, the frantic scared feelings earlier forgotten as he stared at the man that was sitting in a chair across the room from him. Dr. Victor Stone looked just like the man his mind had concocted when he wandered around what he thought was a dream world of the Intersect. Chuck was looking at the man that had created the algorithm that was now so much a part of him.

"How do you know who I am?" Dr. Stone asked him. He was leaning back in his chair, his arms resting on the arms of the chair.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, Chuck responded, "CIA Analyst."

Dr. Stone's eyebrow quirked up, his face clearly not believing him, "Who do you work for?"

"Uhh...the...CIA?" Chuck slowly stated, assuming that he had obviously stated that information.

Chuck quickly became confused as he saw the questioning look from Dr. Stone turn to a more relaxed state, almost as if he didn't feel threatened. "Let me rephrase that," Dr. Stone began as he got up and walked towards the bed, "Who do you report to?"

Chuck looked to the foot of his bed, wondering how to answer the question. Normally he wouldn't have even admitted he was working for the CIA but this current mission it was his cover. He looked at the door, Woods was Fulcrum it turned out, and he didn't even flash on him. But since Woods was Fulcrum he already knew about his relationship with Sarah and Casey, as well as with the two directors. He looked back at Dr. Stone, "I report to my two handlers. And they report to Director Graham and General Beckman."

Dr. Stone's was clearly shocked, his eyes were huge and his mouth hung slightly open, but just as quickly it disappeared into a thoughtful look. Chuck watched as Stone's face scrunched in thought for a few minutes. Stone began to chew on his nail absently while he was thinking, his eyes darting back and forth as he mumbled incoherently to himself. After three minutes he locked eyes with Chuck and gave him a warm smile.

"So, you know my name, but what is yours?" Stone asked politely as he extended his hand out.

"Oh! Sorry, Charles Carmichael." Chuck said, readily accepting and shaking the offered hand.

Dr. Stone got behind Chuck's bed and slowly pushed him forward to the center of the room. He stopped when they reached a wall of three 32 inch LCD monitors attached to a wall. There were two keyboards and two mice on the table. To the side was a large rack of servers, their hard drive lights all blinking rapidly.

"Do you know what Zebra Junction 3 is Mr. Carmichael?" Dr. Stone asked in a jovial tone as he sat on a chair in front of the desk.

"Umm..." Chuck looked around, hesitating to answer.

Stone smiled and gave a humorless chuckle, "Don't worry. Our captors know all about the things I'm asking you. If they didn't, I wouldn't be in this predicament."

Chuck looked at Stone for a few seconds before replying quietly, "It's the data and relationship mapping algorithm that you used with the Intersect."

Stone laughed, a genuine laugh. "Good! But you'll need to speak up, I'm an old man my friend." Stone leaned back into the chair, as he started to point to the ceiling at a small black glass dome. Chuck's eyes followed his gesture as he realized what it was. "No worries."

"So," Stone began again, "what do you think about that algorithm? Do you have an opinion?"

Chuck looked at him strangely, wondering how this man seemed to be in such a good for a captive person. He decided that he needed to start asking as many questions as this man was as well. "We'll, to be honest, I don't think it's very efficient." Stone's eyes quirked up in surprise. Chuck quickly tried to follow his statement up, "What I mean is, it retrieves a huge amount of data but quite a bit of it doesn't pertain to one thing or another. Also, the algorithm is very resource intensive."

Chuck had never seen the original Intersect, he didn't even know how it had acted. What he did know was the amount of information he was able to receive from his flashes as well as the toll that it had on his body.

Dr. Stone fixed Chuck with a very curious stare, "Interesting..." he whispered and immediately lost himself in thought.

Deciding that now was as good a time as any, Chuck asked his own question, "What are you doing here? What do they want from you?"

Stone looked at him gently, almost like how a grandfather would look at his favorite grandson, "I'll answer those questions, but I was wondering if you would permit me to ask you a few more first?"

Chuck really wanted to like this man, he felt comfortable with him. "Sure?" He replied, still slightly hesitant.

"Do you know what _Excalibur_ is?" Dr. Stone asked.

Chuck didn't flash, he was drawing a blank, "King Arthur's sword?"

Stone laughed loudly, "That it is!" He looked in thought for a second before he asked Chuck again, "Do you know what 25 Platinum Street is?"

Chuck immediately flashed, his eyes glazing over as images and text flew by in his mind. He didn't notice the intrigued look that Dr. Stone was giving him as he noticed Chuck's reaction. "It's the failed algorithm that you first created to be used for the Intersect. It failed because it rarely found any patterns of information."

Stone nodded his happily, "What about Harbor 12?"

Again Chuck flashed, but only a few images and information came to him, the smallest amount he'd ever experience. "It's a multi-agency collaboration to share resources in case of national emergencies."

"Do you know which agencies are part of this program?" Stone asked as he began to chew on his nail again.

Chuck just shook his head. He was wondering how many more questions he would have to answer and what these questions were about when Stone said, "I only have two more questions and then I'll answer yours. How long have you been with the CIA?"

Chuck shrugged, "Only a few months now, not even a year."

"And what's your background?"

Chuck looked thoughtful for a minute, he didn't want to give any information about himself. He had a feeling that if he told him that he had gone to Stanford and got kicked out, the people listening in would be able to easily find out who he really was. He decided on a safe and broad answer, "Computer Engineering."

Dr. Stone stood up and walked over to the sever rack, his hand reverently resting on one of the servers. "This, is the reason I'm here." Stone turned around and looked at Chuck, "This, is _Excalibur_."

Sarah and Casey had been standing tall and rigid for the past 10 minutes, staring at Casey's computer screen, as their ears got pummeled from the dressing down that Director Graham and General Beckman had immediately started on the moment they came online. Topics ranged from insubordination and dereliction of duty to blame for not having any further leads. Mostly the directors stuck to the insubordination, repeating the same things over and over again. It would have been tense and serious if it had not been that Director Graham was yelling at Sarah while at the same time General Beckman was shouting at Casey. In the end, all the two agents heard was a high pitched screeching in combination to a baritone yowling, making any of the words that were spouted off completely incomprehensible.

"Is there something that you find humorous, Agent Walker?" Director Graham demanded, while General Beckman repeated the same line at the same time, only it ended with "Agent Casey."

"No ma'am, General." Casey replied, biting his lip.

"No sir." Sarah replied, feigning the chastised look, while her nails were digging into her hands.

There was a few seconds of silence before both directors started to open their mouths again, obviously not having finished. Luckily for the agents, Graham's cell phone rang as he went to answer. Graham walked off screen for a few seconds, and during that time Sarah's cell phone went off as well. Taking a peak at it she saw that Ellie was calling her. Sarah let the call go to her voice mail as she closed her eyes, her brows furrowed, as she let out a short sigh.

Sarah snapped back to attention when Graham walked back into view. She quirked her eyebrow when he whispered something in Beckman's ear before walking back off the screen again.

"We'll continue with this later. " Beckman said tersely and turned off the video feed.

"Who called?" Casey asked as his posture softened and he headed to a pile of papers.

"Ellie. We forgot to come up with a cover story for Chuck being missing these past few days."

"You're slipping Walker." Casey groused.

Sarah looked at him venomously, "I don't see you giving him an alibi."

"Yeh, well, we got time on our hands now, since we've got nothing else to go on." Casey cringed as he headed back over to his computer. "Tell her he was sent on some computer training course at corporate. I'll forge some documents and put it in the system."

"We're going to have to say it was a last minute thing or that Chuck forgot all about it, since Chuck would have normally told Morgan as well." Sarah said as she looked for Ellie's number on her phone. Casey grunted as a reply.

"Ellie, it's Sarah, you called?" Sarah spoke into the phone.

"Sarah, I was wondering, have you seen or heard from Chuck?" Ellie asked, her voice laced with worry. "No one's seen or heard from him in the past couple of days."

"Last time I saw him, he was dropping me off at my place from the beach. He told me that he had to rush to some techie training thing that he had totally forgotten about it. Said it would take a few days or something, I'm not sure." Sarah replied as she watched Casey create some false approved training papers.

"Oh thank god. I've been so worried." There was a pause, as Ellie seemed to be thinking of something. "Morgan didn't know about this. Are you sure he said that he was going to training?"

"Yup. He only remembered it when he checked what day it was. Said he had an early flight out the next day that he needed to go home and pack quickly to make it." Sarah could almost hear Ellie chewing on her lip as she was processing the lie.

"Has he called you since then?"

"He hasn't. Is something wrong Ellie?"

Sarah heard the long sigh at the other end of the line, "Nothing really. He's just been so depressed and walled up lately and work's been making him do so much overtime that he was so exhausted the past few days. I'm just worried."

Sarah closed her eyes. She shifted the mouth piece of her phone away a little and took a few steading breaths, "I'm sure he's fine. He was pretty tired but he seemed really excited about this training."

"Thanks Sarah. I guess I'll talk to Morgan and see if he can find more information from Big Mike about it."

"No problem." Sarah hung up the phone, "Better hurry, Ellie's going to ask Morgan to check with Big Mike."

"It's already in the local Buy More system, I doubt Big Mike will really contact corporate once he finds this."

Sarah's phone rung again as she looked at it, quickly opening it and answering. A few quick seconds later she closed the phone and looked at Casey, "Graham and Beckman want to talk to us again."

The moment that General Beckman and Director Graham appeared on the screen Graham started the briefing, "We've got another situation." He began punching a few commands onto a machine and a profile came up on Casey's monitor.

"We've just been informed that the CIA's lead programmer, Dr. Victor Stone, has gone missing. His family is missing as well." Graham finished.

The blood from Sarah's face drained out, "They know Chuck's the Intersect..."

Graham shook his head, "Probably not." The two agents looked at him, perplexed. "Almost all the equipment in his office in a hidden CIA facility has gone missing as well. The new project he was working on wasn't related to the Intersect at all."

"So this is just a coincidence?" Casey asked.

Graham nodded, "Most likely, but that doesn't make it any more grave. We're also not sure if it's the same people that took the Intersect, we're assuming it is."

Casey snorted, "Looks like the CIA has as big a hole as the NSA."

Sarah ignored him, "What was the doctor working on and what does it matter to us?"

"The reason why we believe it is somehow related is because Bryce was able to get in contact with us." Graham registered the surprised looks on both the agents faces before he continued, "He informed us that he and another member of his organization were tasked with driving that black van to and dumping it at the farm house. He also informed us that he and his organization were providing remote security duties when Dr. Stone was kidnapped."

Sarah's face perked up, "So he knows where Chuck is being held?"

"No. He was only instructed to pick up the van at an industrial complex in Las Vegas and to drive it to that farm to dump it. During Stone's kidnapping they met with another group after the kidnapping and moved the doctor into another vehicle. His task ended there."

"What was the doctor working on?" Casey asked.

"Its codename is Excalibur."

Chuck stared blankly at Dr. Stone, "So... what exactly is this, Excalibur?"

The scientist walked back and sunk into his chair, "In order for me to truly explain to you what it is, let me start from a beginning, not the beginning, but a relevant one."

Dr. Stone was about to start talking again when Chuck raised his hand slightly to halt him, "You know, this may be the most inopportune time, but I just have to say this." Chuck began, "You remind me of Dumbledore."

Stone just looked at him dumbly for a few seconds before he started to laugh, "You and my grandchildren!"

"Sorry, go ahead." Chuck laughed along with him, he was really beginning to like this man.

Stone smiled at him, "So as you stated I created, Zebra, the algorithm that was employed by the Intersect. I'll need to ask you later how you came to the conclusion about about its effectiveness or lack thereof. But anyway, the algorithm was able to produce results that allowed the agencies to complete their missions. As you stated, it required the use of massive CPU cycles and memory was consistently running out on some of the more complex searches. I had used a sampling of the data from the Intersect to do some baseline testing and benchmarking.

"From there I began to try to improve the algorithm. All that stopped when the Intersect was _completely_ destroyed. When they began building the beta Intersect we implemented the same algorithm. As I was waiting for some of the framework for the Intersect to be built, I was brought in to develop a data search and relationship algorithm that would be so powerful that it should be able to cycle through an almost infinite load of information in less than 30 minutes.

"This was to be used on the Harbor 12 project. The naming convention for this project was to imagine a safe harbor for 12 of the allied world's most powerful spy and government agencies. The goal was to pool their resources to fight against whatever tasks that happened to be important at hand. Our calculations based on the estimated amount of data that Harbor 12 was to house would have made even the Zebra Junction 3 algorithm take 3 months to come to a conclusion on even a small data query. And Zebra was the most advanced algorithm at that time. Now, Harbor 12 isn't an Intersect knock off. It was a pure regular relational database, nothing was encoded into images.

"So I began to design Excalibur. Now, Excalibur isn't just a regular search algorithm like all the previous ones. Any and all the algorithms so far were still linear in their search but most importantly, they were just programs. Excalibur on the other hand is an actual entity."

Chuck's eyes grew large as his shocked face turned to look at the server rack. "You mean, it's intelligent?"

"By itself, no. Excalibur is like a puppet." Dr. Stone began, as he walked over to the table with the monitors and keyboards. "All this you see here, provides the resources for Excalibur to compute the search and relationship."

Stone reached behind one of the monitors and brought out what looked like a metallic headband that had goggles and ear plugs attached to it. "This is what makes Excalibur like nothing on this planet. The decision making to determine what to search and where is done by a human wearing this. The neurological speed of the brain to produce a quick decision and determination on facts without having to each and every single time find out if there are any historical significances is unparalleled. Even the existing learning machines are only as advanced as their source data set of information.

"But to use an intelligent human mind, with a lifetime of knowledge and experience, the decisions that Excalibur can decipher and calculate allow it to produce results in 30 minutes what Zebra would have theoretically taken 3 months."

Chuck was staring in shocked fascination between the scientist and Excalibur. "No wonder they want to get their hands on it."

Dr. Stone looked at Chuck and sighed sadly, "Actually, that's not why they want Excalibur." Chuck looked at him with a curious expression.

"Excalibur uses this headset to _connect_ with its human counterpart so that it can harness information provided by the human to help make its decisions. That means we were able to provide Excalibur the capability, to a certain degree, read the humans' intentions and interpret thoughts."

Chuck's stomach dropped like a rock, fear groping him heavily. He could only watch as the scientist continued.

"What they want me to do, is re-engineer Excalibur so that it uses its resources to forcefully sort and extract information from the human connected to it." Dr. Stone concluded sadly.

* * *

A/N: It may be another week before the next chapter comes out as well, before I can get back onto my regular updating schedule. My apologies.


	13. Chapter 13 The Deaf King Arthur

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Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Chuck

* * *

Chapter 13 – The Deaf King Arthur

The Bartowski dining room was a somber place, the inhabitants eating a half hearted meal basic spaghetti and meatballs. It was a simple affair, the three people sitting around the table vacillating between absently pushing their noodles around to shoving a fork-full into their mouth.

Ellie's face was a portrait in worry and fear, "After talking to Sarah yesterday I looked through Chuck's closet. His luggage is still in there so unless he decided to not take anything with him for this trip he didn't do any packing that I can see of."

"I talked to Big Mike last night," Morgan began, "He didn't know that Chuck had any training he was supposed to goto, but when he checked the computer system he found the paperwork."

"Did he confirm with corporate?" Ellie asked.

Morgan shook his head, while rolling a meatball back and forth on his plate, "He didn't. The paperwork in the system was good enough for him."

Ellie got up quickly, heading to the phone. "Babe?" Devon asked at her abrupt move.

"I'm going to contact Buy More corporate." Ellie paused as she looked at the phone, "They should be able to send a message to Chuck to give us a call."

Morgan and Devon kept watch of her as her fingers hovered over the keypad of the phone, unmoving. Sheepishly she looked at Morgan, "Do you know the number?"

"No, but let me find it." Morgan piped up as he went into Chuck's room and started up the mac. A short time later Morgan came running back out and handed a slip of paper to Ellie.

"Buy More, Thomas speaking how may I help direct your call?" A soft voice answered after Ellie dialed the number.

"Hi, could I talk to someone who schedules your training for the Buy More staff please?" Ellie asked, as she waved Morgan away as he was jumping around her whispering the words "Nerd Herders".

"Hold please." Thomas replied.

Ellie heard the ringing again as before someone answered, "Bridget speaking."

"Hi, I was wondering if I could talk to the person in charge of scheduling the Buy More staff training."

"Ah, yes, how can I help you?"

"Do you have anyone by the name of Chuck Bartowski in your current training session?"

"Sorry, we don't have anyone here."

Ellie started to get irritated, "Could you check please?"

"I'm sorry, I meant that we're not having any training sessions this month so we don't have anyone here for training at all."

Ellie's eyebrows rose up in surprise, "But the local Buy More has paperwork that my brother has training this week!"

"What store number is this for?"

Ellie covered the mouth piece to the phone, "Morgan, what store number is the Buy More?"

"25." Morgan responded.

"Store number 25."

There was a few seconds of silence, filled occasionally by keyboard typing and mouse clicks. "That's odd..." Bridget stated.

"What is it?" Ellie asked as she wiped her moist palms on her jeans.

"I found the paperwork in store number 25's system..."

"Yes?" Ellie asked, exasperation creeping into her voice.

"We didn't send that paperwork. It has the proper clearances and digital signatures, but my logs don't show us sending this out. As far as my system is concerned, I didn't send this out."

"Could someone have sent it out?"

"No, I grant all the training requests and scheduling." Bridget answered, "Could I put you on hold, let me talk to my boss."

"Sure, thank you." Ellie took the mouth piece away from her mouth, "She's checking with her boss."

Three minutes elapsed before Bridget came back onto the phone, "Sorry about that. I've checked with a few people including those that supposedly authorized this training and none of them remember or know of this training request. This thing is bogus and we're not sure how store 25 got it."

The color from Ellie's face slowly drained away, "What does this mean?"

"We're going to have some of our staff look into how this paperwork got into the system and we're probably going to contact any authorities if we find anything out. Could I get your name in case we need to contact you?"

"Sure, Eleanor Bartowski. My brother, Chuck Bartowski works at the Buy More and we haven't heard from him in a few days. Supposedly he went to this training thing."

"I'm so sorry Mrs. Bartowski. I would call the police if I were you. This request is bogus and he never checked in here at all."

Ellie's face fell in defeat as she hung up the phone, "Thanks, I'll do that."

"What'd they say?" Morgan asked frantically.

Ellie didn't answer as she punched another number into the phone, her hands shaking fiercely.

"Honey, who're you calling?" Devon asked as he walked up next to her, his hand landing on her shoulder in a comforting grip.

Ellie turned towards him, her head resting against his chest. She talked into the phone as tears began to make their way down her face and into his shirt, "I'd like to report a missing person."

Chuck sat forward, grimacing slightly as the slight pain in his chest, trying to get a better glimpse at the computer monitors that Dr. Stone was sitting in front of while he worked. Not being able to get a clear view of the actual code that was being written Chuck moved his eyes to the old man himself. He still found it odd that for a captive man, he was always in such a good mood. He knew the idea of why, but really didn't understand it. He thought back to the conversation they had earlier this morning.

Chuck had just woken up again, after having had his bandages changed by the nurses, to find Stone working at the computer terminal, typing furiously.

"Are you really going to give them what they want?" Chuck asked, perplexed that someone in the employ of the CIA would willingly do what terrorists would tell them to.

Stone turned around in his chair and smirked while looking slightly up at the ceiling, "Of course."

"Did they," Chuck began nervously, "threaten you?"

Stone laughed as he turned back towards the monitors and began typing away again at the keyboard. "Oh they definitely did threaten me. Captured my family and all that. Threatened to torture and kill them and me if I don't get them what they want."

"And you're not worried? Scared?" Chuck responded, his voice louder and higher pitched than he had hoped.

Stone turned around again, his face showing its standard good nature and easy attitude. "Do I look like one who's worried about the safety of his family?"

Chuck stared at him for about a minute, looking him over carefully, "No, you don't. But you should be!"

Stone got up from his chair and brought it over next to Chuck's gurney before sitting back down onto it. "Let me tell you a story Charles." Stone began, as he began to chew on his right thumbnail. "Now, I'm not an agent or even an analyst, like you." Stone paused as he quirked his eyebrow at Chuck.

"I am a researcher and programmer, but I have been in the organization for the better part of my adult life now. I've dedicated quite a lot of time to do what I do. I've seen fast and tough agents come through the doors of the agency, many not ever returning for one reason or another." Stone paused again, his face slowly becoming more serious.

"Everyone in this organization, or any of the intelligence groups most likely, are all expected to give their all for the _greater good_. It doesn't matter if you're the assistant to a low level manager of if you're the best-of-the-best agent in the organization. All of us are owned and property of the CIA. We're expected to serve with unending devotion and unwavering self-sacrifice. But the agency itself isn't there to back us up. We're all of us expendable. We don't work for Google, you're only relevant as long as you're useful and aren't considered a threat son." Stone paused once more, his eyes looking directly into Chuck's. A shiver went down Chuck's spine, but he couldn't really understand the full concept of this meaning. He'd have to think about it again later and work through it.

Stone looked away, towards the closed door, "Being at the agency for these past few decades I've learned a few things. It took me a while though, but it got through. If you work for the CIA you have to watch your own back and you have to make your own preparations. Obviously, not everyone will need to get to that point eh?"

Stone leaned in close to Chuck and whispered, just barely above a soft breath of air, "I made preparations for my family. They're safe and I know it. So no matter the threats to their lives, I know they're all hollow." He looked at Chuck closely, his eyes wandering all over Chuck's face, "Learn from this."

Chuck stared at the back of the man typing away at the keyboards as he finished recalling his earlier conversation.

"Aren't you scared? For yourself?" He asked out softly.

Stone froze for a second before he typed a few more keys and hit the enter key. A stream of code passed through one of the monitors as he turned around to face Chuck.

"Charles," he began.

"Chuck."

"What's that?"

"My friends call me Chuck." Chuck answered with a small smile, his shoulders shrugged.

Stone responded with a bright smile, "Chuck it is." He leaned back on his chair and brought his arms up behind his head.

"Am I scared?" Stone began again, looking up at small black glass dome in the ceiling. "I most definitely am afraid. I'm not so much scared." He let out a large slow sigh.

"I'm apprehensive of what could happen to me. I'm apprehensive of what my family's future life will be. I'm sad and afraid I may never see them again. And I'm afraid of what potential pain can come." A small smile flittered across Stone's face. "I'm not exactly made for this particular part of the business. But I'm not scared. I have a healthy dose of fear dancing in my stomach but I don't have any feelings of utter terror."

Chuck nodded, his mind seemingly empty as the words bounced back and forth internally. He noticed Dr. Stone turning back to the computer and start typing again. Chuck leaned back against his gurney and stared at his hands.

If he was honest with himself, Chuck was currently terrified, mortified, and at any given second of this time right for wetting himself. He had been more relaxed when there had been some form of communication going on between himself and anyone else in any situation. But sitting here in silence as he listened to Stone's keystrokes and the whirring of hard drives on the servers, he had all to much time on his hands.

A few of the comments from the earlier conversation was still nagging at him.

"... _you're only relevant as long as you're useful and aren't considered a threat_..."

He had always hoped that when everything was done, when the beta Intersect would be completed that he would be able to walk away a free man. No more spies, no more threats, no more missions, and no more secrets. But that little dream seemed to evaporate as Stone's one statement repeated itself over and over again. With the new beta Intersect he wouldn't be useful in the future, but would he be considered a threat?

Again, being honest with himself he could only come to one conclusion. Yes. While information of past operations and secrets that may or may not be outdated in comparison to what the new Intersect could have, it was all still top-secret information. Chuck looked at the servers that housed Excalibur.

Information was still information Chuck realized, and he would be a threat that the CIA couldn't just have walking around willy-nilly. The edges of his vision darkened some as he felt imaginary walls edge slowly around himself, closing-in his breathing room and squeezing out what little comfort he might have been feeling.

He was scared.

Chuck took a few soft calming breaths, the black edges of his vision clearing as he forced himself to focus. He had begun to make himself useful hadn't he? That's what had gotten him into this current mess. As long as he was "working" for the CIA then they would realize that he wasn't working against them, and as such, wasn't a threat.

The word "threat" immediately brought him to the other comment that had been bugging him since he heard it.

"_I made preparations for my family. They're safe and I know it_."

Chuck looked at the locked door to their room. If their captors walked in at this moment and threatened him that they had Ellie, Morgan, or Captain Awesome and would torture them until he gave them information, he would have no choice but to assume they were telling the truth. He didn't _know_ that his family was safe.

Chuck fisted his hands in his lap as a calm cascaded over his features. He swore to himself that if he made it out of here alive, he would make preparations for his own family. If anything else were to happen to him, he would then at least know, that his family was safe. He decided that he would also continually make himself useful.

He grabbed the side of the bed and slowly swung his legs over the edge. Chuck was a little unsteady and weak on his legs as he tried to stand, even with the aid of the gurney as his support. His chest gave a twist of irritation from the many small movements he made while trying to get to a standing position. It took him a few minutes, but his new found determination forced his legs and body to move till he collapsed on a chair at the table besides Stone.

The scientist looked up in surprise. Chuck gave him a smirk, "I was bored." Chuck saw a gleam in Stone's eyes as he looked at him.

"Want to learn about the inner workings of Excalibur?" Stone asked, as he resumed typing.

"Definitely." Chuck said, as he focused on the screens and listened as Stone chatted amiably with him. A few seconds in, Chuck looked over at the older man and said, "Thanks."

Stone smiled and nodded at him, before going back to explaining what was on the screen.

Sarah was absently wiping the counter at the Weinerlicious for the 10th time in the past few minutes. She was about to start on the 11th wiping session when the door to the restaurant opened and in walked two women in business casual attire. Sarah's eyes narrowed ever so slightly before quickly sporting a smile and greeting them.

"Evening," One of the women began. She had slightly curled, shoulder length hair the color of freshly melted milk chocolate. She raised a wallet containing a police badge, causing Sarah to show genuine surprise. "I'm Detective Parnickey and this is my partner, Detective Ward." Sarah looked at the other woman who also showed her badge.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions." Detective Parnickey continued.

"Sure," Sarah replied, "What is this about?"

The other detective, a woman with a shortly cut and smartly combed hair of jet black spoke, "We're looking into the disappearance of a Chuck Bartowski." Detective Ward paused, looking at Sarah for any immediate action before continuing. "His sister, contacted us earlier this evening to report him missing for the past few days and as it seems that you were the last to see him, we'd just like to ask you a few questions."

"Not a problem." Sarah responded calmly.

"Could you tell us the last time you saw Chuck Bartowski?" Parnickey asked.

Sarah nodded her head, "I saw him on the 3rd. We both had the day off and we headed to the beach since he had been working so much overtime the past few days at work. He had dropped me off at my place around 1:30am. Said he had to go home to pack because he had forgotten about his training session."

"Did he say anything else to you?" Ward asked.

Sarah shook her head, "Nope, that's all he said. Just that he was really tired after his past few days of work and was looking forward with getting away from it even for a little while. Even if it was for training."

The two detectives looked at each other before standing up and offering their hands. "Thanks for your cooperation Mrs. Walker."

Sarah got up and grabbed each of their hands. As Parnickey walked out the door she looked back and said, "Please make sure that you don't leave the area, just in case we have any other questions."

The moment the two detectives left the restaurant Sarah opened up her phone and dialed a number. "Casey, we got a problem."

As Parnickey drove away she looked at her partner, "What do you think?"

Wards looked out the passenger side window, "Something's fishy about Walker. She was way too calm for someone who has a friend missing."

Parnickey nodded, "She provided all the information we needed in her first statement. Seems pretty well rehearsed."

Chuck was nodding off as he was staring at the screen, his head bouncing up and down in time to his eye lids drooping.

"Why don't you go to sleep Chuck?" Stone asked him.

"Hmm?" Chuck mumbled. His head slipped from his hand and hit the table top. A grunt of pain escaped from his lips and mingled along with a snort of laughter from Stone.

"Owww..." Chuck rubbed his forehead furiously as he looked at the snickering old man. "How can you stay up for so long. You haven't taken even one single break today!"

"I love what I do." Stone said as he leaned back into his chair, flexing his fingers.

"What do you think they'll do to you when you're done?"

"Most likely kill me."

"And you're still going to give them what they want?" Chuck yelled, incredulous.

Stone looked at him as he began to type again, his voice unusually serious. "Let me give you two pieces of advice Chuck." Chuck nodded his head.

"It took me a long time to learn these two things, as someone who's not a trained agent, we're not handed the information on how to survive in a manual. I learned these two rules through a lot of heartache and turmoil over the years.

"The first, don't trust anyone. No one is your friend in the agency and those that seem to be can just as easily turn on you to help them in their career, in their goals, in their job. You never know who's pulling the strings around here." Stone paused, as he continued typing. "Do you know what I think makes an agent become one of the top CIA agents Chuck?"

Chuck shook his head.

"Detachment. A good agent knows when to be detached. A cold blooded killer is indifferent, they're passionate about their craft, but they'll take anyone out. But a good agent, they're passionate about what they do, about their cause. But they can detach themselves but they're not indifferent."

Chuck's face was scrunched in thought, confusion infused his thoughts as he was taking all that Stone was saying in.

"The second rule, is the opposite of the first one." Stone said, his face lighting into his usual smile. "Don't lose yourself."

Chuck looked at him, utterly befuddled at this point. "Don't forget who you are Chuck, don't forget where you came from, what you _really_ believe in. That's the difference Chuck between a good agent and us. No matter how great an agent they are, the majority of them have lost themselves. They're in the machine, part of the machine, or a machine of their own.

"Know when to follow your instinct and trust people Chuck."

Chuck just stared at him, "But you just said rule one was to not trust anyone!"

"Yes."

"But now you're saying that I should trust people?"

"No, I'm saying you should know when to trust people."

"That's confusing."

"It is. And why would you think it's confusing?"

"How can I in one step not trust anyone yet still be able to trust people. How does that work?"

"Are you a machine Chuck?"

"What?... no."

"Are you a program?"

"No."

"Are you a Vulcan?"

"What?! Well, there was this one time... wait, umm... no."

"Then why do you think it's so confusing? A machine would run itself in a never ending loop, not being able to figure out what the result should be if it should trust or not given these two rules. Is that true?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You're wrong Chuck. What's the difference between yourself and a machine, a program, or logical mechanism?"

Chuck looked down at the table, his thoughts churning to answer the question. There was obviously so many answers to this. A machine was a logical mechanism. It followed rules and it could make decisions. But so then too could a human. A machine wouldn't be able to figure out who to trust if they had the second rule. He looked back at the old man, hoping for a hint.

"What's the difference between Commander Data from Star Trek and say... Excalibur here. You have seen Star Trek I assume?" Stone asked him, his face in a smirk.

Chuck looked affronted for a second, "Of course I do! I did know what a Vulcan was." Chuck paused as he collected his thoughts, "Data was an android who wanted to learn. Excalibur is just a computer."

"And, what was so special about Data?" Stone prodded.

Chuck looked down at the table again, a few seconds passed before his face lighted up, "He was aware of his self!"

Stone clapped his hands together, "Exactly! Are you aware are your self Chuck?"

Chuck nodded in response. "The two rules contradict each other, but the second rule is about trust Chuck. What did I say?"

"Don't lose myself."

"Right, what does that mean?"

"I can make my own choices, but how do I know if they're right?"

"We're not talking about right and wrong Chuck. That's an entirely different discussion. We're talking about what you believe in, we're talking about the essence of Chuck. Who. Is. Chuck. Carmichael?"

Chuck's head snapped up, his eyes growing large. He remembered the night where he had been at Sarah's hotel and he had screamed at the two agents, "Who is Chuck Bartwoski..."

Stone's face erupted into a large smile, "Chuck, the world isn't black and white. People aren't Dumbledore or Voldemort. It's not dark and light. There are times you can't trust the people you love and there are times you can trust your enemies. As a sentient being Chuck, as someone who can think, who's had experiences, you make that decision. We all live in a gray world, our actions are questionable by all except ourselves."

"But what if I choose wrong, what if I trust the wrong person or not trust the person I should?"

"Then you get hurt, or dead, or someone else gets hurt or dead. Every decision comes with a consequence and what we as sentient beings must do is make our best judgment and live with what occurs afterwards. If possible, we learn from it. If we not, we're most likely dead or hidden away like cowards."

Chuck put his arms on the table and rested his head onto it, he wasn't as confused as before but he didn't think he understood it completely.

"The first rule is hard and fast Chuck. The second rule, that's a doozy. The second rule is all about being true to who you are. It's simple and complex at the same time." Stone patted Chuck on the back, "Just think about it. You're not meant to understand it completely, ever."

Chuck noticed a window flash on the screen of one of the monitors and Stone did as well. He focused on that window and began to type a few commands in before he looked back at Chuck with a feral grin. "I have one question for you right now Chuck."

Chuck looked curiously at the old man. "Do you trust me Chuck?" Stone asked, smiling.

Chuck was surprised, his mind whirling in a thousand thoughts. Quickly, almost like a comforting feeling of fatherly hand that rested on his shoulder, he looked back at Stone, "Yeh, I do."

Stone smiled and hit the "enter" key on the keyboard. The whole room went dark.

* * *

A/N - Sorry this took a while to come out. I'm not on my usual updating schedule as I'm still helping out in a heavy proposal at the moment.


	14. Chapter 14 The Mute King Arthur

A/N - Sorry for the extreme delay but work has been completely consuming my time the past few weeks. It doesn't look like it'll get any better until mid November either. Thanks for your patience.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

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Chapter 14 – The Mute King Arthur

"This isn't good." Sarah mumbled as she looked at one of the video feeds at Casey's apartment.

"And you had to bring them to me, great job Walker." Casey grumbled, his arms crossed in front of him as he sat on his sofa.

Sarah was staring at a monitor that had four separate windows showing various feeds from different security cameras. The upper left footage was focused on the street right outside the apartment complex. The focus of Sarah's annoyance was a navy colored Crown Victoria with two dark silhouettes sitting inside.

"Have they interviewed you yet?" Sarah asked as she turned the chair around.

"Nope, but they probably will now that they've seen you come here."

"Whatever, we're just two concerned friends worrying about a missing friend."

"Are we interrupting anything?" General Beckman stated as the LCD screen flicked to life.

"No ma'am." Sarah quickly responded while Casey just gave a short grunt as he stood up.

"So this has nothing to do with the local LA police searching through all available databases for a _Sarah Walker_?" The General growled out, but blew out a breath of air before continuing. "But that can wait. We've got an update."

Sarah stood up straighter, her back going rigid. Director Graham leaned into the camera, "Bryce contacted us last night, he and a few of his group were called in to meet at a designated spot where they would then be taken to further.

"He assumed that they might be taking them to where Chuck is, but he's not sure. His boss said that they're going to provide extra security at a facility, but they think this is the big one."

"Do we know where they met their contacts?" Casey asked.

Graham nodded, "San Francisco, we had a surveillance team keep eagle eye on their progress but they weren't able to completely follow them. We only know they went north from there."

"That at least narrows our search area somewhat now." Sarah thought out loud as she brought up a map of areas north of San Francisco.

Half a block down, in the Crown Victoria that was seen in the video feed, another conversation was being had.

"What does Walker do on her day off, right after she finds out that her good friend has gone missing?" Detective Parnickey absently said as she looked through a set of binoculars.

"Visit her new boyfriend?" Ward responded, a frown spreading her across her face as she looked through documentation in a folder. "Walker is coming up squeeky clean."

"We're not going to get permission to tap her phone are we?" Parnickey asked while looking at her partner.

"Nope, but get this." Ward said as she kept flipping back and forth between a few pages, "She's been staying at the same place for the past few months. And the place is a hotel."

"Hotel?"

"A pretty nice one by the looks of it too. I highly doubt Weinerlicious pays her the type of dime required to keep staying at a place like this."

"Independently wealthy?"

"Not sure. We'd need a little more in-depth financials than what we got."

"Let's call that in then, we've got nothing else to go on."

Chuck was immediately set into a panic the moment the cloak of darkness descended on him. After a few seconds he realized that it was not totally dark, there was the illumination from the computer screen and the blinking servers against the wall.

"I would assume it's too late to tell you not to panic." Stone stated as he brought out the head harness that allowed Excalibur to interface with its human counter part. "We don't have much time, I think 15 minutes at most before they come barging through that door. I've shut all power in this room except for the hardware linked to Excalibur. All their surveillance in this room is powered down as well."

Stone stopped right in front of Chuck, their eyes glimmering slightly from the ambient light. "Trust me. I'm not going to be using this to find any of your secrets."

"K..." Chuck squeaked out, still looking rather nervously as Stone placed the contraption over his head.

Stone quickly turned back and sat in front of the computer as he began typing and talking as quickly as possible, "Excalibur is not complete, at most it's only 50 programmed and 50 theorized algorithm. Yet even in its current state it is far more efficient and capable than Zebra.

"I haven't been converting Excalibur into some sci-fi thought reading device that these people wanted me to, nor have I been working on Excalibur as I had initially intended when I was brought here. I've actually been encoding all the information and the programming of Excalibur into the images localized on this machine.

"I know you have the Intersect in you Chuck."

Chuck sucked in a harsh breath, "What.. how..."

"You don't work for the CIA, you're not a company man, anyone can see that. But I noticed your blank stares when I had first asked you questions about Excalibur and Harbor. You see, I'm not a very well known commodity as I'm kept a pretty deep secret, so you either have extremely high level clearance or something completely odd ball has happened.

"From the information that you had provided from my questions I pretty much figured out that you have the same data that the Intersect had in it before it was destroyed. My concern then, was whether you were an enemy agent who had stolen the Intersect. And honestly, I don't see that at all."

Both men's head snapped to the door as they began to hearing banging sounds and people shouting.

"I've completely locked us in, but they're bound to just cut or blast that door open." Stone said as he turned back to the machine. "One of the small sub-set of data that I had initially tested on was the use of humans as deciphering agents for encoding agents, that's what I assumed allowed you to consume the Intersect. I need to ask you, how fast was your input rate for the images that you were shown?"

"Umm... really fast? They just blinked quickly through, none of them stayed longer than a split second. I kind almost passed out though." Chuck responded, his head trying to adjust to the awkward device. The goggles that were attached to the contraption blurred his vision and he wasn't able to get a good view of Stone or the computer's screen.

Stone turned back towards Chuck after only a few more keyboard strokes, "I'm going to feed you all the information about Excalibur, its algorithms, all the notes I've documented, and all the information that has been uploaded in the initial dataset for Harbor. I don't know how long it'll take.

"But before I do that, I need you to tell you a few things and make sure that you remember them. There's more to the hack that shut off the power to this room. It's pretty much an escape plan that will shut power off to this whole building and bringing certain sections back online for short periods of time. I've documented everything in one of the encoded images. The trigger word for this, remember this, is _gillyweed_, simple. Your Harry Potter knowledge should come in handy.

"The trigger word for Excalibur's programming, algorithms, and notes is an important piece of advice that Dumbledore gave Harry. Don't trigger the data until you're safe and secure. Excalibur is built to destroy all current existing patterns and rebuild relationships from there based on known information. I don't know what will happen to you when this will happen."

"Why?" Chuck desperately asked, "Why are you helping me?"

"In helping you, I'm also helping myself. You are the walking embodiment of my life's work, my professional legacy. I don't know how long it will take for you to absorb all this information but I'm hoping this little blackout will be enough for it so we can make an escape afterwards."

Stone went back to computer, "Are you ready?"

Chuck nodded and immediately after Stone typed in a command and pressed enter, the goggles came to life and images began to scream through. He immediately went into a trance, his whole world now focused on the images flashing before him. Time held no meaning for him and eventually his world became black as he fell into unconsciousness.

"How'd you get rid of your tail?" Casey asked as he sat at a computer console.

Sarah turned away from the stack of photos in front of her. "Got another agent to cause a distraction, tied up traffic behind me and got scott free."

She looked down at her watch and frowned. It had been 4 hours since their debriefing at Casey's apartment and they only just got in the air 30 minutes ago, headed for San Francisco.

"We've got a team pulling all surveillance footage from traffic and gas station cameras in a 20 mile radius from the spot that our eagle eyes lost visual contact. We've got another team sifting through all that footage looking for them, it's only a matter of time before we find them."

Sarah could only nod as she looked back out the window before the co-pilot's voice came through the intercom.

"Incoming from our team on the ground."

"This is Walker, go." Sarah activated the communication console.

"This is Agent Duncan, leading the surveillance team. We've had 3 positive Ids of the vehicle and have it moving North East of San Francisco on route 80. Last ID was in Berkeley." A muffled voice covered by static spoke out.

Casey brought up the map on his laptop as he pointed to location on it.

"Roger that. Move mobile command to San Pablo. " Sarah responded, "Pilot?".

The man nodded, "They're prepping a helicopter at San Fran when you arrive."

"Roger that."

Chuck stirred awake, his chest tight with pain as he groggily opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was in a different room and the second thing he noticed sent him into a furious panic as terror and dread slammed through him.

Ten feet from him was the body of Dr. Victor Stone, faced down, a large pool of blood under him.

"You'll be in that same position if you don't cooperate with us Mr. Carmichael." Colonel Westing said from Chuck's right side.

"I.. don't know what you're talking about..." Chuck stammered. He wasn't able to pull his eyes away from Stone's body.

"We've watched you and the programmer and we know he showed you Excalibur. Did he finish it? Did he show you how to use it?" Westing demanded.

Chuck slowly tore his eyes away from Stone's body and looked at Westing. "He didn't show me anything, I swear!" He realized that he was sitting in a chair, his chest tied tightly to the back of the chair by thick bands of rope. His arms and legs tied down to the chair arms and legs by a zip tie at the wrist and ankle. He could feel how tightly they had closed them off, biting into his flesh.

"I'm pretty sure that's not the case." Agent Woods stated as he walked up from the other side.

Chuck strained against his restraints, giving out a whimper and a grimace as the zip ties dug further into his skin. The immediate pain allowed him to refocus on his current situation, his panic slightly decreasing. His vision began to clear.

"Seriously, I think I might be able to think better if these things weren't tied so tightly." Chuck griped as he waggled his fingers.

"You have a few pieces of information that we need. First, where you obtained all that data during that raid. Second, the state of Excalibur, and third, how to operate it." Woods spoke as he walked in front of Chuck and knelt down. "Come on Carmichael, let's skip all the torture and spy tactics. You tell us what we want and we might even hire you. There's no need to have someone with your expertise and knowledge be wasted, right?"

"How's the health plan?" Chuck joked. "I'm not too sure I like my benefits plan right now."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Woods stated as he got up and nodded to someone behind Chuck.

Chuck saw another man walk past him and head to a table on the far wall and pick something white up. As the man turned around Chuck's eyes were about to burst out of his head, his breath sucked from his chest.

Bryce had a hard look on his face as he leaned against the table, slowly wrapping white hand tape around the knuckles of his right hand.

Sarah and Casey were running to the helicopter, having landed 30 minutes after their communication with the ground team. There hadn't been any further communication and that only meant that they hadn't had any more identifications of the target vehicle. As they seated themselves into the helicopter the co-pilot tapped his headset.

Both agents put their headphones on as the co-pilot started talking, "Ground team just made another positive ID. Video feed from a street camera, catching another car that was running a red light in Crockett on route 80."

Sarah leaned over to look at the map that Casey had brought out.

"Patch us through to ground team and mobile command." Casey said as he moved the map further north, his finger pointing at Crockett, California.

The co-pilot gave a thumbs up as the helicopter took off.

"This is Agent Walker to ground team and mobile command. Move mobile to Vallejo, it looks like they're still heading North East."

"Roger that." A voice crackled over the line.

"We'll meet up at Vallejo. Over."

"Come on Carmichael, you can't take much more of this. We know you're not some regular CIA agent. Just tell us." Woods drawled as he sat on the far table. He watched Brian, also known to Chuck as Bryce, slowly back away, nursing his bloody right hand.

Chuck felt like shit. His lips were a bloody mess, his eyes all but swollen shut. Bruised and bloodied he spit a chunk of blood out, "What's your 401K plan like? ... Seriously?" He coughed out, blood drooling from the corner of his mouth. "I need to make sure I'm taken care of... in my old age."

Woods jumped off the table and gave an exasperated sigh. He had opened his mouth, about to say something when his phone rang. Looking at the caller id he answered it and stared at the video camera in the ceiling, "Woods."

After a quick few seconds, "Understood."

Woods looked to Brian, "Try something a bit more painful."

Chuck looked over at Bryce as he unwrapped the bloody hand tape from his hands. In some odd way, he felt that this was more like what their real relationship should have been like. Instead of Bryce going behind his back covertly sabotaging his life, he should have just done things to him face-to-face. At least he would had known what was coming.

But just as he thought that, he saw the hand tool that Bryce picked up. He sucked in deep gasps of air as the sound of the hand drill spun to life. At this particular time, it was not a good moment to know what was coming at him.

"Couldn't you... at least find a ... smaller bit?" Chuck warbled out.

Sarah was staring at a large display of Northern California, "I want teams to start looking at surveillance footage of all rest stops and gas stations from Crockett and north along route 80. We can focus our search there since we haven't seen any instances other than route 80."

"I want a team to start scanning footage of areas around Leisure Town where 80 and 505 intersect." Casey called out.

"I've got a team looking through the Sacramento area as well." Agent Duncan stated as he walked by them.

"Good." Sarah responded. She started to walk towards one of the video feeds when her phone rang. Looking at the caller, she didn't recognize the phone number. Sarah quickly sat at one of the computers and typed in the number she saw on her phone.

"Who is it?" Casey asked as he walked up behind her.

"Dectective Parnickey, is trying to get a hold of me it seems." Sarah answered as she leaned back into her chair.

"They're starting to get annoying. I got a call from them as well, not sure how they got my cell."

"Probably from Ellie or Morgan." Sarah stated.

Half an hour later and to the west of where the task force was actively searching, Chuck's voice had already given. His throat feeling as if coarse sand paper had ripped through it. But that wasn't the major issue that he had. His whole body was red, each shallow or deep hole drilled into this arm or legs wouldn't stop bleeding. When Bryce had taken a break, the blood dried up, coating some of the wounds with a thing semi-hard layer. They didn't last long as the drilling would begin again and he would be trying with all his might to move away, jerking his body.

Bryce was standing back, his breath heavy and sweat coming down from his forehead. Chuck needed to find a way out of this. He had hoped he would have passed out by now, but they kept waking him every so often with smelling salts.

What had Stone said, the trigger word for the escape plan... what was it. Chuck looked Bryce in the face, he remembered now. "Gillyweed." He whispered so softly.

Images, schematics, as well as instructions flashed before his eyes as he zoned out momentarily. Bryce noticed the vacant expression, noticed the telltale sign of the flash and moved in front of Chuck, blocking him from Woods' view.

As Bryce walked towards him again, his hand drill starting to rise, Chuck's hoarse voice cried out, "Ok, ok, I'll talk."


	15. Chapter 15 Rupture

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

* * *

Chapter 15 – Rupture

Chuck stared at the computer screen in front of him, not really seeing the spiraling lines of code as his almost limp hand remained on the page down key. The keyboard was smeared with red where his fingers and hands had trailed across it while typing in a few commands. "Gillyweed", Stone had told him to memorize. The moment he had whispered it, as he had stared in his torturer's face - Bryce's face, the escape plan that Stone had formulated slammed through his vision and into his memory.

Here he was now, sitting in front of the Excalibur computer system scrolling through lines of code and schematics trying to buy what time he could. Bryce had been replaced with a single armed guard that stood behind him, poking him every few minutes as Chuck faded in and out of consciousness. Chuck was rambling as much incoherent techno-babble as he could imagine to the listening ears to make it seem like he was giving them some of the information that they wanted.

Every part of his body was throbbing painfully or thankfully numb. His left eye was swollen shut and his right had a deep gash across the top and right below. Most of the cuts and wells on his body showed an angry red around the wound's edges. His lips were dry and cracked and a painful stinging would erupt each time he ran his tongue out to moisten them. It was also one of the ways he kept himself awake and alert.

After the first two times he had nodded off and his guard would poke him Chuck realized that it was a potential method for buying what few seconds of time he could to keep thinking. He had the timing and escape route memorized; he was just waiting for an opportunity to set it all in motion.

Chuck saw his opening when his guard turned toward the ceiling camera, the hand that was on the gun moving towards his ears in some form of signal. Quickly, Chuck punched in a short key combination, plunging the room in darkness. The moment that the world went black around him, he gritted his teeth, mustered all the strength he could and swung the chair he was sitting on in the direction that his guard was.

He felt the chair legs connect with body jarring impact shortly before an audible crack echoed in the room. Chuck collapsed onto the floor, his breath blowing up a cloud of dust. Staring in the direction of the door he began to crawl to it as fast as he could. He could hear the shouts from the other side of the wall. The ruckus of pounding feet was getting closer.

Chuck curled behind a small filing cabinet just as the door to the room burst open and six beams of light scanned through the area.

"Dimikoff is down." Chuck heard one of the men say as a flashlight beam found the crumpled body in an every growing pool of blood.

"Find Carmichael!" Another man shouted as they spread out across the room.

Chuck held his breath and laboriously crawled from his hiding place and through the door after all the men had moved into the room. His body burned with effort, each pull of his muscles working the still raw wounds together. His chest and abdomen scrapped against the rough texture of his shirt as he belly crawled along. He didn't stop to catch his breath, even though he was exhaling in small irregular beats.

Chuck's mind was too preoccupied with counting and the panic of possibly going to slowly to worry about the current state of his body. The escape route and timing in his memory had given him approximately to the count of 120 before the next phase of the escape program would initiate.

He paused behind a set of large containers as angry voices passed him by. Once the group passed Chuck urged his body onward, inching by grueling inch he pulled himself along. Sweat was streaming down his face from the exertion. The moment he made it past a stack of metallic boxes, his internal countdown reached 120 and the environment exploded with the klaxon of alarms.

The sound was deafening. Chuck allowed himself a small laugh. If he couldn't hear anything, neither could anyone else. Starting his mental count over again, Chuck kept crawling.

***

Bryce marched quickly down the stairs, the night vision goggles narrowing his field of vision to a frontal cone. His left hand went to his head and pressed the left ear piece further in, only barely able to make out people shouting on the other side.

"I don't believe that skinny bastard." Bryce whispered to himself, the edges of his lips twitching.

He spotted one of the military thugs and tapped him on his shoulder, pointing him to the south side of the building where the elevator was located. The man nodded and moved back, sweeping his submachine gun in front of him. Moving north again Bryce spotted about eight men searching around the weapons containers and tables on the north side of the building.

***

"We've missed the mark somewhere." Sarah hissed. She was starring at a map that had a pin stuck at each location that the van they had been searching for was spotted. In the past thirty minutes their team had found no more sightings of the van.

"There aren't that many cameras in the areas we're looking at now agent." A member of their team responded.

"Go back west." Casey ordered, getting a hard stare from Sarah.

"Our last sighting was in Vallejo on the 80." Casey pointed to the last pin on the map. "We assumed they would stay on the 80 but they could've gone west."

"Yes sir." One of the analysts responded as he picked up a cell phone to coordinate with the mobile agents.

***

He saw something.

Bryce glanced back to the far-east side of the building at a small stack of boxes and zoomed in with his goggles. "How did he get there so fast" Bryce whispered to himself as he saw a pair of feet slide out of view behind another long box.

Bryce looked further ahead of where Chuck seemed to be moving and saw the door to the stairs about fifty feet away. Another ten feet from the door was two-man patrol heading straight for Chuck's location. Looking around, Bryce quickly signaled the patrol to come towards him.

Pretending to keep an eye of the men coming towards him, Bryce watched as the dark form slowly kept moving forward.

One of the men from the patrol came up to him. Bryce bumped into him as he walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder. He signaled to the two men that he saw something on the far west side of the building. Nodding in reply, they both hurried off in that direction signaling other teams to follow them.

Bryce looked at the cell phone in his hand that he had taken from the man's belt.

***

Chuck felt something collide with his out stretched hand and immediately came to a stop. He looked around and noticed no one immediately around him. Pulling the object to his face, Chuck squinted until he realized it was a phone. He looked in the direction that the phone came in and barely saw a figure huddled behind a desk signaling for him to keep moving.

Not acknowledging the man Chuck held onto the cell phone and kept moving forward.

"Damn you Bryce." Chuck harshly ground out as he trudged forward. His voice lost in the screaming alarms.

Holding the phone tightly he hated himself for knowing he needed to take the phone, hated Bryce for giving it to him. It was easier to completely loathe him, to hate him for what he had done. Having Bryce give this offering of help just galled him. And he hated that he knew he had no choice.

***

"We've got nothing Agent Walker." An analyst at a computer said. "There aren't that many cameras around the area and we didn't find anything on those that were there."

Sarah fell into a chair and dropped her head into her hands. "Let's try going 20 to 50 miles north and start looking in that area. See if we can spot anything."

"We're losing him again." Sarah whispered, not looking up to face anyone.

Casey looked at her sternly, "We're closer than we were yesterday Walker."

***

Chuck closed the door behind him and rested his back against it as he finished his current countdown. The moment he finished he felt a solid vibration from the door signaling the locking mechanism snapping into place. He curled into himself some as he felt a bubble of elation ripple through his chest. He laughed, a hoarse laugh amplified by the exhaustion and pain that he felt. Tears dripped down his face, falling onto his pajama bottom.

The cold from the door leeched through his body causing him to start shivering. Chuck rolled away from the door and braced himself against the wall. He aggressively wiped the tears from his face.

He wasn't safe yet. This wasn't the time for a breakdown.

Chuck moved forward and felt for the first stair. The echo from the alarms was louder in the narrow confinement of the stairway. He grabbed the railing and began to pull himself up, not really knowing how high the stairs went. Chuck's legs wobbled as he righted himself, his body more spent than he had ever felt before.

"I really need to go to the gym." Chuck mumbled as he began the slow ascent.

***

Bryce noticed the stairway door close in his peripheral vision as he tried to direct as much of the patrol squads away from the east side at key points.

"ANY LUCK IN TURNING THIS DAMN ALARM OFF?" Bryce yelled into the ear of a man trying to hotwire a control panel.

"NEGATIVE! NOTHING ON THIS PANEL IS ACTIVE. THERE'S NO POWER COMING INTO IT AT ALL!" The man shouted back.

Bryce walked back to a group of men standing off to the side. Colonel Westing and Agent Woods looked over at him when stood in front of them. They weren't wearing night vision goggles but had flashlights in their hands. Bryce switched his goggles off when they brought the light up to his face.

Pointing up and shaking his head he gave them his message.

Westing pointed to in the direction of the stairway door as well as the elevator and then held up five fingers. Bryce and Woods nodded as they went to round up ten men to split up guard duty on each possible exit.

Bryce walked away with a smirk on his face, only to disappear immediately.

"We're four stories underground."

***

Chuck collapsed again, his legs giving underneath him. His breathes were short, labored, and pained. Leaning forward against the railing a high pitched whimper came escaped his mouth. It was quickly followed by another and then another.

He barely had any energy left to wipe away the tears, how was he going to make it up an unknown amount of stairs. Sobs wrenched his body. His breathing became hiccups of tortured whispers.

A sharp pain from his lip caused him to immediately sit up, his tears slowly stopping. The pain reminded him of only a few moments ago when he was sitting in front of the computer licking his lips to maintain his focus. That in turn reminded him of Excalibur and Dr. Stone.

Chuck reached a tired and shaky hand up to the rail while pushing himself up with his other. Stone hadn't given up no matter the situation.

The alarm sound faded into the back of his mind as purposes for continuing on formulated into his head. He had to get back to Ellie, had to make sure that she would be safe.

And Stone had entrusted him with his life's work, he would not let that man down.

What seemed to him like hours later, Chuck finally reached the top of the stairs. He pulled out the cell phone and opened it up. He let out a sigh of relief as he saw a half bar of reception.

Chuck was about to dial Sarah's number until he realized that he didn't remember it. He sat staring at the phone, trying to recall it. Frowning, he tried to recall Casey's number and came up blank as well. Panic began to set in until he was able to easily and quickly recall Ellie's celluar. Instead of calling her, he dialed the next best option he could think of.

"911, what's your emergency?"

***

"Agent Walker!" An analyst shouted as she quickly leapt from her desk and ran up to Sarah.

"You get another hit?" Sarah asked, her optimism soaring.

"Not from surveillance, but we got a call from Langley. They got a hit from a 911 call from a Charles Carmichael."

"Casey!" Sarah shouted, before turning back to the analyst. "Put it on speakers."

A few seconds later the jolting sound of a blaring alarm spilt from the speakers, causing everyone to stop working and stare at Sarah and Casey.

"… _Charles, can I call you Charles_?" a female voice shouted through the line.

"_Chuck… call me Chuck_…" an extremely weak male voice responded, almost barely audible. But the voice was enough for Sarah and Casey to stand up taller, their eyes going wide.

"Do we know where he is?" Casey asked one of analysts.

"No, they're trying to triangulate his signal now. We do know the call is being answered by the Napa Valley Sheriff's department."

"Prep the helicopter." Casey said to two agents on the side.

Sarah stayed rooted to the spot, her ears and attention straining to hear more of Chuck's voice.

"_Chuck, stay with me now. My name's Angela._"

"_Nice to meet… you… Angela._"

"_I'll be staying here with you the whole time Chuck. Once we get your location I'll be sending officers and paramedics to you. Do you understand Chuck?"_

"_Yeh…"_

"_You're doing great Chuck. What would really help me out is if I could get some information from you. Can you do that for me Chuck?"_

"_Okie Dokie…"_

"_How badly injured are you Chuck?"_

"_Pretty bad…"_

Sarah clamped her hands together, her knuckles going white.

"_Can you describe your injuries for me Chuck?"_

"_Bruising… cuts. My left eye… is swollen shut. I have… lots of holes in me. Lots … still bleeding."_

Sarah's face drained itself of all color.

"_Holes? What do you mean holes Chuck?"_

"_Drill... They drilled... me."_

A soft intake of breath was heard on the line, barely due to the alarm still ringing through. But Sarah's intake of breath was loud enough for everyone to hear.

"_You'll be safe Chuck. We've got your location now and I'm sending officers and paramedics to you Chuck."_

"He's at the Silverwood Winery. 121 Birch Road." One of the analysts shouted, scribbling locating the address on the map.

"_Where can the officers find you Chuck?"_

"_In a stairwell… not sure where… which door."_

"_That's good Chuck. I'll be staying here with you the whole time."_

"Radio chatter puts the locals ten to fifteen minutes away, we're looking at least twenty-five before we can reach there."

"We're gonna have to try. Let's go Walker!" Casey shouted as he headed out the door.

Sarah quickly headed to the door, stopping briefly, "Patch that line through to the helo!"

***

"Chuck, are you still with me?"

"Not really…" Chuck mumbled, his eye lid drooping as his body shivered painfully.

"The police officers are at your location. They're about to open the door to the stairwell."

"K…" Chuck responded, as his body slid sideways. The last vision he had, before his world tuned out, was a bright light and a muzzle of a gunpointing at his face.


	16. Chapter 16 Bleeding Out

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck

* * *

Chapter 16 – Bleeding Out

Three Napa Valley Sheriff department vehicles came skidding to a halt, their flickering lights causing shadows to dance in a world now invaded by red and blue. Uniform officers propped their driver and passenger side doors open as they still remained safely behind them. Their side arm already out in their primary hands as they lifted their flashlights underneath the handle of the weapon.

"Dispatch, we've approached destination. Surrounding area looks clear." One of the officers said into the radio piece at his shoulder. "We're going in to take a closer look."

The three pairs of officers moved closer to a barn like building that had large metal vats on each side. As they moved closer, the sound of a security alarm grew louder.

"Sounds of an alarm getting louder as we approach the building." The officer signaled for the other two pairs of policemen to take flanking positions to the large barnyard entrance.

One of the deputies on the left side rubbed up against a metal vat as he approached, causing it to make a weak hollow sound. His eye brows shot up as he lightly tapped it again. Approaching another metal vat he did the same thing, getting the same hollow sound in return. Taking his flashlight he took a closer look at the connecting pipes before quickly joining his partner.

"Dispatch, we've got empty fermentation tanks here. Aside from the dust and debris, doesn't look like any wine's been through here." He whispered into his radio.

One of the middle officers grabbed a hold of a door handle as he prepared to open the door. The remaining men braced themselves against the wall of the building. With a three count, the door swung open as the officers on the left filed in, the first entering and quickly sweeping left while the second entered and quickly swept right.

Sweeping the open space the group of six deputies collapsed back in the middle, giving the all clear.

"Dispatch, central building area all clear. Alarm is pretty loud in here." One of the officers reported.

"Roger. Victim reports he is in a stairwell. Proceed with caution." Angela's voice crackled through the radio.

"Understood, proceeding to search doors." The officer responded as the group split up.

A few minutes of searching the building ended with three locked doors and a large size elevator housed in the central area.

"Officers, victim has just passed out and is unresponsive…" Angela began when the all the police officers as well as Angela stopped talking. The building flooded with light as the alarm suddenly quieted. A sharp crack echoed through the room as one of the officers was thrown back in a surprised cry.

"Take cover!" One of the officers shouted as they quickly moved back towards the main entrance door, sporadically returning fire in any given direction. The fallen policeman was dragged by his partner before throwing the both of them behind a stack of wooden barrels.

"We've got shots fired and an officer down!" One of the policemen shouted into his radio, his voice drowned out by the rattling of submachine gun and splintering wood. "We need back up! They're heavily armed! Unknown number!"

The radio crackled to life as Angela sounded off, "This is dispatch calling all cars. Calling all cars. We have an 11-99, shots fired and an officer down. Officers need assistance at Silverwood Winery, 121 Birch Road. Repeat. Shots fired. Officers need assistance."

***

"This can't be good." Casey grumbled as he listened in on the police radio chatter. Looking over and meeting Sarah's ashen face, he saw the worry plainly displayed on her face. As one they reached back and grabbed a M4 Carbine that was attached to the wall. They both grabbed a few clips and shoved them into their pockets before taking one more and jamming it into the assault rifle.

"Patch me through to the locals." Sarah said into her headset as she held the rifle, muzzle pointed up, at her side. She leaned against it and slowly began to relax.

Casey watched Sarah's composure begin to strengthen, her face harden and her eyes become more focused as she moved her hands along her weapon. He gave her a tiny nod before leaning back and refocusing on the police chatter.

***

Sheriff Deputy Thomas Parnickey ejected the clip from his Beretta and slammed home his last twelve round clip. He looked down at the pale and grim face of his partner. His partner's hands were pressed tightly against his side to stem the flow of blood from the earlier gun shot wound.

"You hanging in there John?" Deputy Parnickey asked as he peered in between two barrels.

"Grand ol' time." Deputy John Huchins said as he gritted his teeth in pain.

Parnickey grabbed his radio, "Dispatch, what's the eta on backup?"

"_Less than two minutes. We've also got feds coming in_."

Huchins looked up sharply despite his pain, his face showing evident surprise. "Fed?"

Parnickey ducked down quickly as a scattering of bullets hailed down on the two barrels he was looking between, but not before catching sight of the huge elevator lowering into the ground.

"Mark, you hear me?" Parnickey shouted into his radio as he looked across the room at the four officers that were using a large metal tank as a shield.

"_Go_." Deputy Mark Bucciner's voice crackled through.

"Central platform, elevator, just lowered. They may be getting support soon."

"_Understood. Tony spied a door to the right opening up and returning fire as well._"

Parnickey saw a small movement in the elevated platform on the far side of the room. He fired off two quick shots and ducked back down, not having the time to confirm a hit or miss before a rain of bullets hailed down at his vacated spot.

"_How's your ammo?_" Bucciner's voice came across the radio.

"Ten left. On my last mag."

"_John's?_"

"I've used his three clips."

"_Roger that._"

A set of sharp cracks behind Parnickey drew his attention, causing him to instinctively turn around. A smile of relief flittered across his face as he saw two officers poking in and out from each side of the main entrance shooting into the building. A few short seconds later two metal entry shields came through the entrance. The shields were literally jammed side-by-side and angled slightly upward, creating an impressive metal wall as the two officers behind them made their way forward.

When the two shielded officers made their way to Parnickey they dropped the shields to reveal two paramedics almost literally on top of them.

"He's been hit on his right abdominal side. Through and through." Parnickey told the paramedics as they began working on his partner.

"What's the situation Tom?" One of the officers asked as he took up a covering position on the left, his entry shield out.

"We've got an unknown amount of bad guys. At least two on higher ground on the raised platform to the left and right. Central lift went down a few seconds ago, possibly to get more support. Door to the right of the room has unknown bad guys in it too. We have at least one victim in a stairwell somewhere." Parnickey responded as he accepted two magazines from the other officer, nodding his head in thanks. "Just you two?"

"Marie and five others are circling the building trying to find another way in. Justin and three others are about to…" The officer began before a hail of gun fire erupted from the main entrance as another wall of three metal entry shields moved into the room.

The new arrivals moved further into the room before splitting off to the right side and taking cover.

"_Marie here. Building is sealed except for main entrance…_" Deputy Marie Hannan announced over the radio before a column of smoke poured out from the shaft in the room.

"_Cover smoke! Shit, we're dealing with professionals here!_" The voice of Deputy Tony Lee shouted through the radio.

Before anyone could respond a tornado of ammunition and a thundering of what sounded like a squad of machine guns broke free from the middle of the smoke.

***

The moment the helicopter touched down Casey and Sarah were out with their rifles up and quickly marching towards the winery with three other agents behind them. Navigating between the dozen or so police cars the agents silently made their way to the left side of the building. They stopped at a blank side of the building and Casey and Sarah stepped aside as two agents moved up.

As the two agents attached a strand of explosive cabling in the shape of a tall rectangle, two large black SUVs skidded to a stop about twenty feet away. Casey walked up to them as the agents in the cars came out and headed to the rear of the vehicles and began to outfit themselves.

"I want one sniper on the south western side looking into the main entrance. One at each of the other three sides with thermals to provide body movement intell. Rest of you with me." Casey ordered.

When Casey and the remaining three men walked back to Sarah he saw that she was now surrounded by a group of local Sheriff Deputies. She looked up at them as she took her hand off her radio. "I've just informed the locals of our plan. They're keeping fire clear to this side of the building. They did warn that there's one shooter at high elevation on this side on a platform further back."

Casey grabbed his radio, "Thermal on west and south side. Do you see a body on an elevated platform?"

"_West-eyes. Approximately five to eight feet from your location on your left. Target is on a nine to ten foot raiser_. _I also see four targets further north._"

"_North-eyes. I have eyes on two raised bodies. West's target is three to five feet from your wall. East side target is flush to east wall and on nine to ten foot raiser. There are six targets spread across north side._."

"Roger that." Casey responded, "East-eyes, anything to report?"

"_East-eyes. I have large heat grouping about five feet from middle. Looks like four to five men_."

"Locals?" Casey asked.

"_Negative. Locals are further South in two groups._"

"Roger. Keep us posted. All agents switch to local channel for team communication." Casey said as he switched his radio to the local Sheriff department's CB channel.

"Napa Valley Sheriff department. This is Agent Casey with Federal support team onsite." Casey confidently spoke into the radio as he saw one of the agents give Sarah the thumbs up.

Sarah walked up to Casey, "We ready?"

Casey leaned in slightly, invading her space a fraction, "Are you?"

Sarah brought her M4 Carbine up to her chest. With her eyes glued to Casey's she pulled the cocking mechanism back, releasing it as a round was chambered.

"All teams, plan execution in 10 seconds." Casey stated into his radio.

***

Parnickey fired off another three rounds at the raised platform on the far east side before feeling a burning sensation in his left shoulder while at the same time thrown down onto his back. He felt arms grab him as he was pulled closer to their shielded area. Grimacing and biting back the pain as the paramedics tried to get at his wound, he noticed that one of the officers was hunkering down. Quickly looking to the other side of the room he saw the other deputes doing the same thing.

"…7…" A female voice from the radio pulled him from his confusion.

"…8…" Parnickey twisted around, ignoring the angry demands from the paramedics to remain still.

"…9…" He looked through a slit between two barrels at the west wall.

"…10." Parnickey closed his eyes and ducked his head as a part of the wall blew inwards and straight into one of the enemy combatants, large spears of wood impaling the man.

***

The moment the wall blew in Casey tapped the shoulder of one of the agents who then proceeded immediately through the new opening. The agent swung left and aimed high, launched a grenade from its housing beneath his assault rifle, and continued quickly left.

Casey followed immediately, acknowledging the explosion that rocked large room as parts from the raised platform and the man on top rained down. Casey moved right, quickly locating the locations of the deputies and sending bullets ripping through the air at two enemy targets.

Sarah's hand left Casey's shoulder as he swung right. She marched through the opening and went forward squeezing off her trigger in repeated bursts as she saw movement of three bodies that did not share the colors of the Napa Valley Sheriff department.

The remaining agents single file entered the room and alternating their direction to form a two-by-two formation. Deputy Marie and her officers split into two groups, one heading toward the North side of the building and the other staying in the central area.

"_North-eye. Two tangos on North wall moving to West wall. Incoming ten feet._"

"Roger." Whispered, one of the two agents that had entered and moved to the North side of the building replied. The two man team stopped moving forward ducked behind a column, before appearing on the opposite side. One of the agents dropped to his knees and opened fire while the other remained standing and sent a stream of metal straight at the oncoming targets.

"Tangos down." The kneeling agent said as he moved back into stance and proceeded forth.

"_North-eye, confirmed._"

"_East-eye. I've got movement of that large heat mass. They may be mobilizing._"

"Roger." Sarah responded right before the door opened as two men stepped out, swinging their machines in an arc. Sarah and the agent following her dived behind a grouping of barrels.

In the midst of new eruption of gunfire, no one noticed the large lift arrive again with a revving SUV on it, until the passenger began unloading his weapon as well.

"Walker! They're making a run for the car!" Casey shouted as he tried to peak his head from his hiding spot.

"I see them…"

"_East-eye. Large heat mass is moving out… wait, there's a real weak body reading I didn't see before. This one's fading._"

"Wait. What? Repeat that again East-eye!" Sarah shouted into her radio as she poked her head up for a better view.

"_One heat signature is low on heat still in this room. Looks to be fading fast. This guy is dying._"

"_This is dispatch. That could be our caller, Chuck Carmichael!_"

Sarah's face scowled, her eyes cold and furious as she shot up from her position and unloaded a full clip at two of the men as she purposely moved forward to another hiding position. The agent shadowing her was barely able to keep up.

Then she saw him.

"Chuck…" Sarah whispered in anguish, seeing the state he was in. He was being carried like a sack of potatoes, too lifeless. It may have been the stress, it could have been the adrenaline coursing through her, or it could have been her relationship with Chuck – whatever that was, but even in his unconscious state he looked utterly in pain. Her face scrunched up, mirroring the agony in her whisper, only to curl into a ferocious snarl a second later as she looked at the man that was holding him up and holding a gun to his head.

"Bryce…"


End file.
